
Cop3Tiglil X? . 



COPMJIGHT DEPOSIT. 



LONGMANS' ENGLISH CLASSICS 

EDITED BY 

ASHLEY H. THORNDIKE, Ph.D., L.H.D. 

PROFESSOH OF ENGLISH IN COLUMBIA nNIVEBSITT 



LORD BYRON 



rHE FOURTH CANTO OF CHILDE HAROLD 
THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 
AND OTHER POEMS 



longmang' Cttgliel^ Clageiics 
BYRON'S 

FOURTH CANTO OF CHILDE 
HAKOLD 

THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 

AND OTHER POEMS 

EDITED 

WITH NOTES AND INTRODUCTION 
BY 

H. E. COBLENTZ, A.M. 

PRINCIPAL OP THE SOUTH DIVISION HIGH SCHOOL, MILWAUKEE, 

WISCONSIN 




NEW YORK 
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 

LONDON, HOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA 
1911 




<0 



> 



'i/ 



Copyright, 1911, 

BY 

LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. 



THE SCIENTIFIC PRESS 

ROBERT DRUMMONO AND COMPANY 

BROOKLYN, N. Y. 



©CI,A283267 



<<(. 

^ 



CONTENTS 



Introduction vii 

Bibliographical Note xv 

Chronological Table xvi 

(■HiLDE Harold. Canto the Fourth .... 1 

The Prisoner of Chillon 64 

Mazeppa . . , 78 

On this Day I Complete My Thirty-sixth Year . . 106 

Notes ... 109 



INTRODUCTION 



George Gordon Byron, the sixth Lord Byron, was born 
in Halles Street, London, January 22, 1788. His father 
was John Byron, commonly called "Mad Jack," a captain 
in the Guards and a very great rascal, who squandered his 
wife's fortune at the gaming table and then deserted his 
family; and his^ mother, Catherine Gordon of Gicht, was 
a stormy-tempered Scottish heiress of little learning. Both 
were of ancient and distinguished, but tainted, stock. 

The story of Byron's life is a most paradoxical one. 
There are two distinct sides to it, one good, the other bad. 
Hence one critic is led to speak of his ^' splendid and im- 
perishable excellence of sincerity and strength ;" and another 
of his " gaudy charlantry, blare of brass, and big bowwow- 
ishness." And both are right, though neither has arrived 
at the whole truth. The reasons for these contradictory 
elements in Byron's life, however, are not far to seek. His 
parentage, his early training, and the circumstances of his 
boyhood, all tended toward one end — to make him what he 
was as a man. A knowledge of these leaves little in his 
irregular conduct to be explained away. 

At the age of ten Byron succeeded to the baronial title, 
and mother and son at once left Aberdeen (Scotland) — 
whence they had retired, on the desertion of the husband 
and father, on £150 a year — to take up their residence at 



viii INTRODUCTION 

Newstead Abbey, the ancient family seat, near Nottingham. 
Here they lived unhappily together for a year. Neither 
seems to have understood the other. Gossip tells how 
altogether uncertain Mrs. Byron's deportment was; how 
one moment she would hurl the tongs at the boy's head, 
or taunt him with his deformity (a sort of club foot) as a 
*Mame brat," and the next almost smother him with caresses; 
while each, it is said, warned a nearby apothecary not to 
sell poison to the other. Thus they lived for a year '^ in 
a tempest," then the boy was put to school, first at Dul- 
wich, and later (1801) at the famous boys' school at Harrow, 
where he remained -for five years. Perhaps the future poet's 
most prominent characteristics at this period were his ten- 
dency to lord it over his mates — to be first or nothing — 
his innate opposition to authority, and his propensity for 
falling in love. 

In 1805 Byron entered Trinity College, Cambridge. We 
quote from Copeland.and Rideout: ^' You must picture him 
at this time," they write, **as a brilliant, vain, -sensitive 
youngster, whom the Gyp (the man that took care of his 
rooms) feared as a ^ young man of tumultuous passions ' ; 
who made several sincere friends. Long, Harness, Matthews, 
Scrope, Davies, and Hobhouse ; who found Cambridge dull 
and became a harum-scarum undergraduate, sometimes 
sitting up over champagne and claret till after midnight; 
who was a ^ood cricketer, rider, boxer, could dive in the 
Cam and get coins fourteen feet deep, and was an expert 
shot;" in short, ^Svho did everything, almost, but study;" 
a picture in the light of Byron's own statement, that he 
^* was always cricketing, rebelling, fighting, and in all man- 
ner of mischiefs," certainly not far astray. 

But one must not think of Byron's college career as 
wholly wasted. Two things it did for him worth while: 



I 



INTRODUCTION ix 

it gave him a fondness for books, and it stimulated him 
to poetic utterance. It was in 1807, in his second year 
at college, that his first serious venture in verse, Hours of 
Idleness, appeared. As poetry it amounted to almost 
nothing. Almost any schoolboy with a penchant fbr 
rhyming, might have done as well. But the sequence 
was most important. In 1808, just a year after the vol- 
ume appeared, a savage attack was made upon it in the 
Edinburgh Review. Byron struck back fiercely in his Eng- 
lish Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809). Biting, and indis- 
criminate, and often manifestly unjust as this rejoinder was, 
it, had power. No such satire had appeared in England 
since the days of Pope. All literary London was set by 
the ears. The writer of juvenilia had been stung into 
becoming a real poet. Early the same year Byron, having 
come of age, took his seat in the House of Lords; then, 
after a protracted revel at Newstead, set out on his travels 
abroad. 

It apoears that Byron left England with the intention 
of visiting Persia and India, but if so he changed his plans. 
Instead, with his friend Hobhouse, he landed at Lisbon, 
journeyed through Portugal and Spain, and then made his 
way to Malta and the ^Egean countries, where he spent 
the greater part of two years. There can be no doubt 
that this visit to the Continent made Byron. The change 
in scenery, the visits paid to ancient historic shrines, the 
breaking away from English conventionalities for the life 
of Southern Europe — the deep impressions all these made 
upon him — aroused his true poetic genius. In 181 1 he 
returned to England, carrying with him ^' some four thou- 
sand lines of one kind or another,'' written during his 
travels. Among these *^ four thousand lines " were the first 
two cantos of Childe Harold, 



X INTRODUCTION 

The story of the publication of Childe Harold (1812) is 
a familiar one. All England was taken by storm. In his own 
threadbare phrase, Byron " awoke one morning and found 
himself famous." Other poems rapidly followed: The 
Giaoilr and The Bride of Ahydos, the latter written in four 
days, in 181 3; and The Corsair, written in ten days: The 
Ode to Napoleon, Hebrew Melodies, and Lara, in 18 14; 
and the Siege of Corinth and Parisina, in 181 5. These 
works — most of them brilliant, oriental verse-tales — like 
Childe Harold, had an enormous sale. Fourteen thou- 
sand copies of The Corsair were sold in a single day. In 
ten years the publisher Murray realized £75,000 from 
Byron's pen alone. Scott was driven from the field and 
began to write prose. Byron, to use his own words, had 
become ^'*the grand Napoleon of the realms of rhyme." 
All literary and social England was at his feet. 

But public adulation for Byron was short-lived. In Jan- 
uary, 181 5, he married Miss Milbanke, a lady of rank and 
fortune. Whatever the cause, their marriage was unhappy, 
and at the end of a year, immediately after the birth of 
their daughter, Lady Byron went home to her father's 
house never to return. Now came the reaction. English 
society, in a spasm of reformx, turned upon its idol with 
fierce criminations. ''I was accused of every monstrous 
vice of public rumor and private rancor," Byron wrote later 
from Italy. . ^^My name which had been a knightly or a 
noble one, since my fathers helped conquer the king- 
dom for William the Norman, was tainted. I felt that -if 
what was whispered, and muttered, and murmured was 
true, I was unfit for England; if false, England was unfit 
for me." Smarting under a sense of injustice, he left Eng- 
land (April, 1816) forever. This separation from his wife 
and departure from his native country marks a stage in 



I 



INTRODUCTION xi 

the development of Byron's genius. From this time a new 
note of power and a depth of feeling heretofore unknown 
to him are present in his verse. 

Landing at Calais, Byron proceeded through Flanders, 
thence up the Rhine to Switzerland. Here he met the poet 
Shelley, and under his influence and the spell of the Lake 
Geneva country, wrote some of his noblest works: most 
notably, the third canto of Childe Harold; and the Pris- 
oner of Chillon, included in this volume. From Switzer- 
land he went to Venice (1817), and later to Ravenna (1820). 
His literary output, during the four years spent at these 
places, was tremendous. In 181 7 he finished Manfred, 
and wrote the fourth canto of Childe Harold, The Lament 
of Tasso and Beppo, the last in the gay, witty and satirical 
mood, later so successful in Don Juan; in 181 8 and 181 9, 
the first four cantos of Don Juan, the Ode on Venice and 
Mazeppa, the last named included in this volume; and in 
1820 and 1 82 1, A Vision, of Judgment, The Prophecy of 
Dante, the five dramas. Heaven and Earth, Cain, Sardan- 
apalus, Marino Faliero, The Ttvo Foscari, and a canto or 
two of Don Juan, besides shorter poems. It is safe to say 
that few other authors have produced so much in so short a 
time; and this in spite of his excesses, liasons, and debauch- 
ery. Later he wrote the dramas, Werner and the Deformed 
Transformed, The Island, and additional cantos of Don 
Juan, 

In 1822 Byron went to Pisa, where, in company with 
Shelley and Leigh Hunt, he established a journal of revo- 
lutionary tendencies, called the Liberal; but which came to 
an abrupt end with the tragic death of Shelley the follow- 
ing year. From Pisa he went to Genoa (1823). The rest 
is soon told. At Genoa he received overtures from liis 
friends Kinniard and Hobhouse to join the Greeks, then 



xii INTRODUCTION 

engaged in their efforts to throw off the Turkish yoke. 
Always an enthusiastic lover of freedom, he consented. To 
raise funds he sold Newstead; he hired and provisioned a 
brig, and in July, 1823, set sail for Cephalonia. The next 
spring found him at Missolonghi eager for action, straight- 
ening out the tangles among the quarreling factions of the 
Greeks, building fortifications, and planning campaigns. 
But his health began to give way. Constant exposure to 
rain and cold brought on a fever. In his delirium he im- 
agined himself on the battlefield, and called upon his Suli- 
otes to follow him. On April 19, 1825, he died at the 
age of thirty-six. All Greece was plunged in grief. The 
provisional government decreed that all public offices should 
be closed, that the nation go in mourning for thirty- 
one days, and that a salute of thirty-seven guns be fired. 
His body was taken to England, and, denied a place in 
Westminster, was buried in the family vault at Hucknall 
near Newstead. 

Byron's place in literature is not easily fixed. On no 
other author of so great repute, are the critics so divided. 
That he was the vogue during his lifetime, however, none 
will dispute. Even his detractors acknowledge his genius — 
though decrying the man — and recognize the tremendous 
influence he exerted over the literature of his day, both in 
England and on the Continent. Indeed, on the Continent 
he is still held to be the greatest English poet of the cen- 
tury. 

Byron's power as a poet lies in the intensity of his appeal 
to the emotions. His poems are extremely subjective. ^^ He 
has fecundity, eloquence, and wit," says M. Scherer, 
'^but these qualities are confined within somewhat narrow 
limits; for he has treated hardly any subject but one — him- 
self." To the extent, then, that he could not, or did not, 



INTRODUCTION xiii 



verse, Byron was not, in the best sense, a true artist. Other 
faults pointed out in his poetry are a lack of sincerity, a 
seeking after oratorical effect, narrowness of imagination, 
carelessness in rhyme, infelicity in the selection and man- 
agement of words, slips in grammar, and lack of finish, 
due in part at least to his rapid composition, but no less 
inexcusable for all of that. 

But for all these faults — and some of them glaring faults 
— Byron has written much that is poetry of highest quality. 
The Dream and Darkness, written shortly after his separa- 
tion from his wife, are among the most powerful poems in 
the language; some of the descriptions in Childe Harold 
are unexcelled; his dramas, although on the whole unsuited 
for the stage, contain many exquisite and intensely dramatic 
passages; his verse-tales are spirited and full of action; 
and Don Juan, whatever may be thought of its morality, 
is certainly a masterpiece of satire. Perhaps we could not 
do better than to close with a few appreciations, in the 
main favorable, from men of recognized authority. " Byron 
was a poet then," says one, ''but in his own fashion: a 
strange fashion, like that in which he lived. There were 
internal tempests within him, av^alanches of ideas, which 
found issue only in writing." Goethe, forgetful of himself, 
says: "Byron is undoubtedly to be regarded as the greatest 
talent of our century; . . . the English can point to no 
poet who is his like. He is different from all the rest and, 
in the main, greater." Scott, likewise forgetful of his own 
I)oetical talents, writes: "As various in composition as 
Shakespeare, Lord Byron has embraced every topic of 
human life and sounded every string on the divine harp 
from its slightest to its most powerful and heart-astound- 
ing tones." " Along with liis astounding j)ower and pas- 



xiv INTRODUCTION ' 

sion/' says Matthew Arnold, ^'he had a strong and deep 
sense for what is beautiful in human action and suffering. 
. . . Nature seems to take the pen from him as she took 
it from Wordsworth, though in a different fashion/' '^By- 
ron," says Mr. Swinburne, ^'who rarely wrote anything 
either worthless or faultless, can only be judged or appre- 
ciated in the mass: the greatest of his works is his whole 
work taken together.'' And finally, a statement from the 
poet himself: ''I have written," he says, ^^from the fulness 
of my mind, from passion, from impulse, from many mo- 
tives, but not 'for their sweet voices'. To withdraw my- 
self from myself has ever been my sole, my entire, my 
sincere motive in scribbling at all — and publishing also the 
continuance of the same object- -by the action it affords 
to the mind, which else recoils upon itself." 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 



The standard edition of Byron's works, including poems, 
letters, and journals, is that edited by E. H. Coleridge and 
R. E. Prothero, and published by John Murray, London. 
Moore's ^^Life" (1830), with an edition of the Journals 
and Letters, is still the standard biography, though open 
to criticism. Perhaps the best short memoir is by John 
Nichol in the '^English Men of Letters" series. The life 
by Roden Noel in the ''Great Writers" series, has a useful 
bibliography. Among the best critical essays on Byron are 
those by Macaulay, Jeffrey, Hazlitt (''Spirit of the Age"), 
Matthew Arnold ("Essays in Criticism," second series), J. 
A. Symonds (in Ward's "English Poets"), John Morley 
("Miscellanies," vol. 1), Paul E. More {Atlantic Monthly, 
December, 1898). For a good account of Byron in con- 
nection with the literature of his period, see C. H. Herford's 
"The Age of Wordsworth." 



I 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 

(The dates of Byron's Works are the dates of publication, 
not those of writing.) 



Byron's Life 




Literature 


Biography and 


AND Works. 






History. 


1788. Jan. 22 bom. 




1790. Burke's Reflections 
on the Revolution in 
France. 

1 791. Boswell's Life of 
Dr. fohnson. 


T789. States General 
meets at Versailles. 
French Revolutioii 
begins. Fall of th^' 
Bastile. 






1792. Paine's Age of 


1792. Shelley born. 






Reason. 


1793. Louis XVI of 
France executed. 






1794. Ann Radcliffes 


1794. Robespierre over- 






Mysteries of Udolpho. 


thrown. Gibbon died. 

1795. Carlyle and Keats 
born. 

1796. Burns died. 

1797. Burke died^ 


1798. Succeeds to 


the 


1798. Wordsworth and 




Baronial title 


and 


Coleridge's Lyrical Bal- 




goes to live at New- 


lads. 




stead. 






1800. Macaulay born. 

Cow per died. 
180T. Union of Great 

Britain and Ireland. 

John Henry Newman 

born. 


1802-1805. Attends 


1802. Scott's Minstrelsy 


1802. Treaty of Amiens, 


school at Harrow. 


of the Scottish Border. 




Enters Cambridge 






1803. War between Eng- 
land and France re- 
newed. 

1804. Hawthorne born. 






1805. Scott's The Lay of 


1805. Austerlitz and 






the Last Minstrel. 


Trafalgar. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 



xvii 



Byron's Life 
AND Works. 

1807. Hours of Idleness. 



1809. Engl ish Bards and 
Scotch Reviewers. 

Takes seat in House 
of Lords. Leaves 
England for travels on 
the continent. 

i8ti. Returns to Eng- 
land. 

1812. Childe ^Harold 
(Cantos I and II). 



1 813. The Giaour. The 

Bride of A bydos. 
^814. The Corsair. Lara. 



1 81 5. January, marries 
Miss Milbanke. De- 
cember, birth of 
daughter. Hebrew 
Melodies. 

1 81 6. The Siege of Cor- 
inth. Parisina. Sep- 
arates from his wife; 
and in April leaves 
England. June, in 
Switzerland with 
Shelley. November 
in Venice, where he 
remains for three 
years. The Prisoner 
of Chilian. Childe 
Harold. (Canto III) 

1 81 7. Manfred. 



1 81 8. Childe Harold 

(Canto IV). Beppo 
Don Juan begun. 



Literature. 



1807. Lamb ' s Tales from 
Shakespeare. Words- 
worth's Poems. 

1808. Scott's Marmion. 
Goethe's Faust (part i) 

1809. Irving's Knicker- 
bocker's History of New 
York. 



811. Jane Austen's 
Sense and Sensibility. 



1 813. Shelley's Queen 
Mab. Scott's Rokeby. 

1814. Wordsworth's The 
Excursion. Scott's 
Waverley. 



1 81 6. Coleridge's Chris- 
tabel.. Shelley's Alas- 
tor. Bryant's Thana- 
topsis: 



1 81 7. Moore's Lalla 
Rookh. Keats' Poems. 
Coleridge's Biographia 
Liter aria. 

1818. Keats' Endymion. 
Scott's Rob Roy and 
The Heart of Midloth- 
ian. 



Biography and 
History. 



1807. Longfellow 
Whittier born. 



and 



1809. Mrs. Browning, 
Tennyson, Darwin, 

Gladstone, Lincoln, 
Holmes and Poe born. 



1 8 1 1 . Thackeray bom . 

181 2. Browning and 
Dickens bom. War 
between England and 
America. Napoleon's 
Russian Campaign. 



1 81 4. Congress of Vienna. 
Washington city 
burned by British. 
Treaty of peace be- 
tween England and 
America. 

1815. Battles of Water- 
loo and New Orleans. 



1817. Jane Austen died. 



XVlll 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 



Byron's Life 
AND Works. 



1 819. Mazeppa. Don 
Juan (Cantos I and 
II). 

1820. At Ravenna. 



1 82 1. Expelled from Ra 
venna. Don Juan 
(Cantos III-V). 
Marino Faliero, Sar- 
danapahis, Two Fos- 
cari, Cain, Vision of 
Jtidgment. Novem- 
ber, in Pisa. 

1822. Visited by Leigh 
Hunt. The Liberal 
established. July, 
death of Shelley. 
Werner. 

1823. Heaven and Earth 
Don Juan (Cantos 
yi-XIV. Sails from 
Genoa for Greece in 
July. 

1824. Don Juan (Can- 
tos XV-X VI). Death 
at Missolonghi, April 
19. 



Literature. 



819. Scott's The Bride 
of Lammermoor. Ir- 
ving's The Sketch Book. 

820. Scott's Ivanhoe. 
Shelley's Prometheus 
Unbound. Keats' Hy- 
perion. 

821. De Quincey's Con- 
fessions of an Opium 

Eater. Scott's Kenil- 
worth. Cooper's The 
Spy. Shelley's Adon- 
ais. 



1822. Irving's Brace- 
Bridge Hall. Lamb's 
Essays of Elia (1822- 
1823). 

1823. Scott's Quentin 
Dunvard. Cooper's 
The Pioneers. 



:82 4. Scott's Redgannt- 
let. 



Biography and 
History. 



1 819. George Eliot, 
Kingsley, Ruskin, 
Froude and Lowell 

■ born. 

1820. Tyndall and Her- 
bert Spencer bom. 

George III died. George 
IV ascends the throne. 

1 82 1. Keats died. 



822. Matthew Arnold 
bom. Shelley died. 



CHILDE HAKOLD 

CANTO IV 

THE PmSONEK OF CHILLON 
AND OTHER POEMS 



LORD BYRON 



CHILDE HAROLD 



CANTO THE FOURTH 



I STOOD in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs, 
A palace and a prison on each hand; 
I saw from out the wave her structures rise 
As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand: 
A thousand years their cloudy wings expand 5 

Around me, and a dying Glory smiles 
O'er the far times, when many a subject land 
Looked to the winged Lion's marble piles, 
Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred 
isles. 



II 

She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean, 10 

Rising with her tiara of proud towers 

At airy distance, with majestic motion, 

A ruler of the waters and their powers. 

And such she was; — her daughters had their 

dowers 
From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East 15 
Pour'd in her lap all gems in sj^arkling showers: 
In purple was she robed and of licr feast 
Monarchs partook, and decm'd their dignity in- 
creased. 



CHILDE HAROLD 



III 



In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more, 
And silent rows the songless gondolier; 20 

Her palaces are crumbling to the shore, 
And music meets not always now the ear; 
Those days are gone, but Beauty still is here; 
States fall, arts f?cde, but Nature doth not die, 
Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear, 25 

The pleasant place of all festivity. 
The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy! 

IV 

But unto us she hath a spell beyond 
Her name in story, and her long array 
Of mighty shadov/s, w^hose dim forms despond 30 
Above the dogeless city's vanished sway: 
Ours is a trophy which will not decay 
. With the Rialto; Shylock and the Moor 
And Pierre can not be swept or worn away, 
The keystones of the arch 1 — though all were o^er, 
For us repeopled were the solitary shore. 36 



The beings of the mind are not of clay; 
Essentially immortal, they create 
And multiply in us a brighter ray 
And more beloved existence. That which Fate 40 
Prohibits to dull life in this our state 
Of mortal bondage, by these spirits supplied, 
First exiles, then replaces what we hate; 
Watering the heart whose early flowers have died. 
And with a fresher grow^th replenishing the void. 45 



* 



CHILDE HAROLD 



VI 



Such is the refuge of our youth and age, 
The first from Hope, the last from Vacancy; 
And this worn feeling peoples many a page, 
And, may be, that which grows beneath mine eye. 
Yet there are things whose strong reality 50 

Outshines our fairy-land; in shape and hues 
More beautiful than our fantastic sky, 
And the strange constellations which the Muse 
O'er her wild universe is skilful to diffuse: 

VII 

I saw or dream'd of such, — but let them go, — 55 
They came like truth and disappeared like dreams; 
And whatsoe'er they were — are now but so. 
I could replace them if I would; still teems 
My mind with many a form which aptly seems 
Such as I sought for, and at moments found: 60 
Let these too go, for waking Reason deems 
Such over-weening phantasies unsound. 
And other voices speak and other sights surround. 

VIII 

I've taught me other tongues, and in strange eyes 
Have made me not a stranger — to the mind 65 

Which is itself, no changes bring surprise; 
Nor is it harsh to make, nor hard to find 
A country with — ay, or without mankind; 
Yet was T born where men are j)roud to be, 
Not without cause; and should I leave behind 70 
The inviolate island of the sage and free, 
And seek me out a home by a remoter sea, 



CHILDE HAROLD 



IX 



Perhaps I loved it well; and should I lay 
My ashes in a soil which is not mine, 
My spirit shall resume it — if we may 75 

Unbodied choose a sanctuar}^ I twine 
My hopes of being remembered in my line 
With my land's language: if too fond and far 
These aspirations in their scope incline, — 
If my fame should be, as my fortunes are, 80 

Of hasty growth and blight, and dull Oblivion bar 



My name from out the temple where the dead 
Are honour'd by the nations — let it be. 
And light the laurels on a loftier head 
And be the Spartan's epitaph on me, 85 

^ Sparta hath many a worthier son than he.' 
Meantime I seek no sympathies, nor need; 
The thorns w^hich I have reaped are of the tree 
I planted, — they have torn me — and I bleed: 
I should have known what fruit would spring from such 
a seed. 90 

XI 

The spouseless Adriatic mourns her lord; 
And annual marriage now no more renew'd, 
The Bucentaur lies rotting unrestored. 
Neglected garment of her widowhood! 
St. Mark yet sees his lion where he stood 95 

Stand, but in mockery of his wither'd power, 
Over the proud Place where an Emperor sued. 
And monarchs gazed and envied in the hour 
When Venice was a queen with an unequall'd dower. 



CHILDE HAROLD 



XII 



The Suabian sued, and now the Austrian reigns — 
An Emperor tramples where an Emperor knelt; loi 
Kingdoms are shrunk to provinces, and chains 
Clank over sceptred cities; nations melt 
From power's high pinnacle, when they have felt 
The sunshine for a while, and downward go 105 
Like lauwine loosen'd from the mountain's belt; — 
Oh for one hour of blind old Dandolo, 
Th' octogenarian chief, Byzantium's conquering foe! 

XIII 

Before St. Mark still glow his steeds of brass, 
Their gilded collars glittering in the sun; no 

But is not Doria's menace come to pass? 
Are they not bridled? — Venice lost and won. 
Her thirteen hundred years of freedom done, 
Sinks, like a sea-weed, into whence she rosel 
Better be whelm'd beneath the waves, and shun, 
Even in destruction's depth, her foreign foes, 116 
From w^hom submission wrings an infamous repose." 

XIV 

In youth she was all glory, a new Tyre, 
Her very by-word sprung from victory. 
The 'Planter of the Lion,' which through fire 120 
And blood she bore o'er subject earth and sea; 
Though making many slaves, herself still free. 
And Europe's bulwark 'gainst the Ottomite; — 
Witness Troy's rival, Candia! Vouch it, yc 
Immortal waves that saw Lepanto's light! 125 

For yc arc names no time nor tyranny can blight. 



CHILDE HAROLD 



XV 



Statues of glass — all shiver'd — the long file 
Of her dead Doges are declined to dust; 
But where they dwelt, the vast and sumptuous pile 
Bespeaks the pageant of their splendid trust; 130 
Their sceptre broken and their sword in rust, 
Have yielded to the stranger: empty halls. 
Thin streets, and foreign aspects, such as must 
Too oft remind her who and what enthralls, 
Have flung a desolate cloud o'er Venice' lovely walls. 

XVI 

When Athens' armies fell at Syracuse, 136 

And fetter'd thousands bore the yoke of war. 
Redemption rose up in the Attic Muse, 
Her voice their only ransom from afar: 
See! as they chant the tragic hymn, the car 140 
Of the o'ermaster'd victor stops, the reins 
Fall from his hands — his idle scimitar 
Starts from its belt — he rends his captive's chains, 
And bids him thank the bard for freedom and his 
strains. 

XVII 

Thus, Venice, if no stronger claim were thine, 145 
Were all thy proud historic deeds forgot, 
Thy choral memory of the Bard divine. 
Thy love of Tasso should have cut the knot 
Which ties thee to thy tyrants; and thy lot 
Is shameful to the nations, — most of all, 
Albion, to thee: the Ocean queen should not 
Abandon Ocean's children; in the fall 
Of Venice think of thine, despite thy watery wall 



CHILDE HAROLD 



XVIII 



I loved her from my boyhood; she to me 
Was as a fairy city of the heart, 155 

Rising like water-columns from the sea. 
Of joy the sojourn, and of wealth the mart: 
And Otway, Radcliffe, Schiller, Shakespeare's art, 
Had stamp'd her image in me; and even so. 
Although I found her thus, we did not part, 160 
Perchance even dearer in her day of woe 
Than when she was a boast, a marvel, and a show. 

XIX 

I can repeople with the past — and of 
The present there is still for eye and thought. 
And meditation chasen'd down, enough, 165 

And more, it may be, than I hoped or sought; 
And of the happiest moments which were wrought 
Within the web of my existence, some 
From thee, fair Venice, have their colours caught: 
There are some feelings Time cannot benumb. 
Nor torture shake, or mine would now Ije cold and 
dumb. 171 

XX 

But from their nature will the tannen grow 
Loftiest on loftiest and least shelter'd rocks. 
Rooted in barrenness, where nought below 
Of soil supports them 'gainst the Alpine shocks 175 
Of eddying storms; yet springs the trunk, and mocks 
The howling tempest, till its height and frame 
Are worthy of the mountains from whose blocks 
Of bleak, gray granite into life it came, 179 

And grew a giant tree; — the mind may grow the same. 



CHILDE HAROLD 



XXI 



Existence may be borne, and the deep root 
Of life and sufferance make its firm abode 
In bare and desolated bosoms: mute 
The camel labours with the heaviest load, 
And the wolf dies in silence, — not bestow'd i8_s 

In vain should such example be; if they, 
Things of ignoble or of savage mood. 
Endure and shrink not, we of nobler clay 
May temper it to bear, — it is but for a day. 

XXII 

All suffering doth destroy, or is destroyed 190 

Even by the sufferer; and in each event, 
Ends: — Some, with hope replenishe'd and rebuoy'd. 
Return to whence they came — with like intent. 
And weave their w^eb again; some, bow'd and bent. 
Wax gray and ghastly, withering ere their time, 195 
And perish with the reed on which they leant; 
Some seek devotion, toil, war, good or crime. 
According as their souls were form'd to sink or climb. 

XXIII 

But ever and anon of griefs subdued 
There comes a token like a scorpion's sting, , 200 
Scarce seen, but with fresh bitterness imbued; 
And slight withal may be the things which bring 
Back on the heart the weight which it would fling 
Aside forever: it may be a sound, — 
A tone of music, summer's* eve, or spring, 205 

A flower, the wind, the ocean, — which shall wound, 
Striking the electric chain wherewith we are darkly 
bound; 



CHILDE HAROLD 



XXIV 



And how and why we know not, nor can trace 
Home to its cloud this lightning of the mind, 
But feel the shock renewed, nor can efface 210 

The blight and blackening which it leaves behind, 
Which out of things familiar, undesigned. 
When least we deem of such, calls up to view 
The spectres whom no exorcism can bind. 
The cold — the changed — perchance the dead — anew. 
The mourn'd, the loved, the lost — too many! — yet how 
few! 216 

XXV 

But my soul wanders; I demand it back 
To meditate amongst decay, and stand 
A ruin amidst ruins; there to track 
FalPn states and buried greatness, o'er a land 220 
Which was the mightiest in its old command. 
And ijthe loveliest, and must ever be 
The master-mould of Nature's heavenly hand, 
Wherein were cast the heroic and the free, 224 

The beautiful, the brave — the lords of earth and sea, 

XXVI 

The commonwealth of kings, the men of Rome! 
And even since, and now, fair Italy, 
Thou art the garden of the world, the home 
Of air Art yields, and Nature can decree; 
Even in thy desert, what is like to thee? 230 

Thy very weeds are beautiful, thy waste 
More rich than other climes' fertihty; 
Thy wreck a glory, and thy ruin graced 
With an immaculate charm which cannot be defaced. 



10 CHILDE HAROLD 

XXVII 

The moon is up, and yet it is not night — 235 

Sunset divides the sky with her, a sea 
Of glory streams along the Alpine height 
Of blue Friuli's mountains; Heaven is free 
From clouds, but of all colours seems to be 
Melted to one vast Iris of the West, 240 

Where the day joins the past Eternity; 
While, on the other hand, meek Dian's crest 
Floats through the azure air, an island of the blest 1 

XXVIII 

A single star is at her side, and reigns 
With her o'er half the lovely heaven; but still 245 
Yon sunny sea heaves brightly, and remains 
Roird o'er the peak of the far Rhaetian hill. 
As day and night contending were, until 
Nature reclaimed her order: gently flows 
The deep-dyed Brenta, where their hues instil 250 
The odorous purple of a new-born rose. 
Which streams upon her stream, and glass'd within it 
glows, 

XXIX 

Filled w^ith the face of heaven, which from afar 
Comes down upon the waters; all its hues, 
From the rich sunset to the rising star, 255 

Their magical variety diffuse. 
And now they change; a paler shadow strews 
Its mantle o'er the mountains; parting day 
Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues 
With a new colour as it gasps away, 260 

The last still loveliest, till — 'tis gone — and all is gray. 



CHILDE HAROLD 11 

XXX 

There is a tomb in Arqua; — reared in air, 
Pillar'd in their sarcophagus, repose 
The bones of Laura's lover: here repair 
Many familiar with his well-sung woes, 265 

The pilgrims of his genius. He arose 
To raise a language, and his land reclaim 
From the dull yoke of her barbaric foes; 
Watering the tree which bears his lady's name 
With his melodious tears, he gave himself to fame. 270 

XXXI 

They keep his dust in Arqua where he died. 
The mountain village where his latter days 
Went down the vale of years; and 'tis their pride — 
An honest pride, and let it be their praise — 
To offer to the passing stranger's gaze 275 

His mansion and his sepulchre; both plain 
And venerably simple, such as raise 
A feeling more accordant with his strain 
Than if a pyramid form'd his monumental fane. 

XXXII 

And the soft quiet hamlet where he dwelt 280 

Is one of that complexion which seems made 
For those who their mortality have felt. 
And sought a refuge from their hopes decay'd 
In the deep umbrage of a green hill's shade, 
Which shows a distant prospect far away 285 

Of busy cities, now in vain display'd 
For they can lure no further; and the ray 
Of a bright sun can make sufficient holiday, 



12 CHILDE HAROLD 



XXXIII 



Developing the mountains, leaves, and flowers, 
And shining in the brawling brook, where -by, 290 
Clear as its current, glide the sauntering hours 
With a calm languor, which, though to the eye 
Idlesse it seem, hath its morality. 
If from society we learn to live, 
'Tis solitude should teach us how to die; 295 

It hath no flatterers; vanity can give 
No hollow aid; alone — man with his God must strive: 

XXXIV 

Or, it may be, with demons, who impair 
The strength of better thoughts, and seek their prey 
In melancholy bosoms, such as were 300 

Of moody texture from their earliest day 
And loved to dwell in darkness and dismay, 
Deeming themselves predestined to a doom 
Which is not of the pangs that pass away; 
Making the sun like blood, the earth a tomb. 
The tomb a hell, and hell itself a murkier gloom. 305 

XXXV 

Ferrara, in thy wide and grass-grown streets 
Whose symmetry was not for solitude. 
There seems as 'twere a curse upon the seats 
Of former sovereigns, and the antique brood 310 
Of Este, which for many an age made good 
Its strength within thy walls, and was of yore 
Patron or tyrant, as the changing mood 
Of petty power impell'd, of those who wore 314 
The wreath which Dante's brow alone had worn before. 



CHILDE HAROLD 13 

XXXVI 

And Tasso is their glory and their shame: 
Hark to his strain and then survey his cell! 
And see how dearly earned Torquato's fame, 
And where Alfonso bade his poet dwell. 
The miserable despot could not quell 320 

The insulted mind he sought to quench, and blend 
With the surrounding maniacs, in the hell 
Where he had plunged it. Glory without end 
Scattered the clouds away, and on that name attend 

XXXVII 

The tears and praises of all time; while thine 325 
Would rot in its oblivion — in the sink 
Of worthless dust which from thy boasted line 
Is shaken into nothing — but the link 
Thou formest in his fortunes bids us think 
Of thy poor malice, naming thee with scorn. 330 
Alfonso! how thy ducal pageants shrink 
From thee ! if in another station born, 
Scarce fit to be the slave of him thou madest to mourn: — 

XXXVIII 

Thou! form'd to eat, and be despised, and die. 
Even as the beasts that perish, save that thou 335 
Hadst a more splendid trough and wider sty; 
He! with a glory round his furrow 'd brow. 
Which emanated then, and dazzles now, 
In face of all his foes, the Cruscan quire, 
And Boileau, whose rash envy could allow 340 

No strain which shamed his country's creaking lyre, 
That whetstone of the teeth — monotony in wire! 



14 CHILDE HAROLD 



XXXIX 



Peace to Torquato's injured shade! 'twas his 
In life and death to be the mark where Wrong 
Aim'd with her poison'd arrows, but to miss. 345 
Oh, victor unsurpassed in modern song! 
Each year brings forth its miUions; but how long 
The tide of generations shall roll on, 
And not the whole combined and countless throng 
Compose a mind like thine ? Though all in one 
Condensed their scattered rays, they would not form a 
sun. 351 

XL 

Great as thou art, yet paralleled by those. 
Thy countrymen, before thee born to shine. 
The Bards of Hell and Chivalry; first rose 
The Tuscan father's comedy divine; 355 

Then not unequal to the Florentine 
The southern Scott, the minstrel who call'd forth 
A new creation with his magic line. 
And, like the Ariosto of the north, 359 

Sang ladye-love and war, romance and knightly worth 

XLI 

The lightning rent from Ariosto's bust 
The iron crown of laurel's mimick'd leaves; 
Nor was the ominous element unjust. 
For the true laurel-wreath which Glory weaves 
Is of the tree no bolt of thunder cleaves, 365 

And the false semblance but disgraced his brow; 
Yet still, if fondly Superstition grieves. 
Know, that the lightning sanctifies below 
Whate'er it strikes; — yon head is doubly sacred now. 



i 



CHILDE HAROLD 15 

XLII 

Italia! oh, Italia! thou who hast 370 

The fatal gift of beauty, which became 
A funeral dower of present woes and past, 
On thy sweet brow is sorrow ploughed by shame, 
And annals graved in characters of flame. 
Oh, God! that thou wert in thy nakedness 375 

Less lovely cr more powerful, and couldst claim 
Thy right, and awe the robbers back, who press 
To shed thy blood and drink the tears of thy distress; 

XLIII 

Then might'st thou more appal; or, less desired, 
Be homely and be peaceful, undeplored 380 

For thy destructive charms; then, still un tired, 
Would not be seen the armed torrents pour'd 
Down the deep Alps; nor would the hostile horde 
Of many-nation'd spoilers from the Po 
Quaff blood and water; nor the stranger's sword 
Be thy sad weapon of defence, and so, 386 

Victor or vanquished, thou the slave of friend or foe. 

XLIV 

Wandering in youth, I traced the path of him. 
The Roman friend of Rome's least-mortal mind. 
The friend of Tully. As my bark did skim 390 
The bright blue waters with a fanning wind, 
Came Megara before me, and behind 
^Egina lay, Piraeus on the right. 
And Corinth on the left; I lay reclined 
Along the prow, and saw all these unite 395 

In ruin, even as he had seen the desolate siiiht; — 



16 



CHILDE HAROLD 



XLV 

For Time hath not rebuilt them, but uprear'd 
Barbaric dwellings on their shattered site, 
Which only make more mourn'd and more endeared 
The last few rays of their far-scatter'd light 400 
And the crush'd relics of their vanish'd might. 
The Roman saw these tombs in his own age, 
These sepulchres of cities which excite 
Sad wonder, and his yet surviving page 
The moral lesson bears, drawn from such pilgrimage. 

XLVI 

That page is now before me, and on mine 406 

His country's ruin added to the mass 
Of perish'd states he mourn'd in their decline, 
And I in desolation. All that was 
Of then destruction is; and now, alas! 410 

Rome — Rome imperial, bows her to the storm, 
In the same dust and blackness, and we pass 
The skeleton of her Titanic form, 
Wrecks of another world whose ashes still are warm. 



XLVII 

Yet, Italy! through every other land 415 

Thy wrongs should ring, and shall, from side to side; 
Mother of Arts, as once of arms; thy hand 
Was then our guardian, and is still our guide: 
Parent of our Religion, whom the wide 
Nations have knelt to for the keys of heaven. 420 
Europe, repentant of her parricide. 
Shall yet redeem thee, and, all backward driven, 
Roll the barbarian tide, and sue to be forgiven. 



CHILDE HAROLD 17 

XLVIII 

But Amo wins us to the fair white walls, 
Where the Etrurian Athens claims and keeps 425 
A softer feeling for her fairy halls. 
Girt by her theatre of hills, she reaps 
Her corn and wine and oil, and plenty leaps 
To laughing life wdth her redundant horn. 
Along the banks where smiling Arno sweeps 430 
Was modern Luxury of Commerce born, 
And buried Learning rose, redeem'd to a new morn. 

XLIX 

There, too, the Goddess loves in stone, and fills 
The air around with beauty. We inhale 
The ambrosial aspect, which, beheld, instils 435 
Part of its immortality; the veil 
Of heaven is half undraw^n; within the pale 
We stand, and in that form and face behold 
What mind can make when Nature's self \^ouid fail; 
And to the fond idolaters of old 440 

Envy the innate flash which such a soul could mould' 

L 

We gaze and turn away, and know not where, 
Dazzled and drunk with beauty, till the heart 
Reels with its fulness; there — for ever there — 
Chained to the chariot of triumphal Art, 445 

We stand as captives and would not depart. 
Away! — there need no words nor terms precise, 
The paltry jargon of the marble mart 
Where Pedantry gulls Folly — we have eyes: 
Blood, pulse, and breast confirm the Dardan Shep- 
herd's prize. 450 



18 CHILDE HAROLD 



LI 



Appear'dst thou not to Paris in this guise? 
Or to more deeply blest Anchises? or, 
In all thy perfect goddess-ship, when lies 
Before thee thy own vanquished Lord of War? 
And gazing in thy face as toward a star 455 

Laid on thy lap, his eyes to thee upturn. 
Feeding on thy sweet cheek; while thy lips are 
With lava kisses melting while they burn, 
Shower'd on his eyelids, brow, and mouth, as from an 
urn! 

LII 

Glowing and circumfused in speechless love, 460 

Their full divinity inadequate 

That feeling to express or to improve, 
. The gods become as mortals, and man's fate 

Has moments like their brightest; but the weight 

Of earth recoils upon us; — let it go! 465 

We can recall such visions and create. 

From what has been or might be, things which grow 
Into thy statue's form and look like gods below. 

LIII 

I leave to learned fingers and wise hands. 
The artist and his ape, to teach and tell 470 

Ho^v well his connoiseurship understands 
The graceful bend and the voluptuous swell: 
Let these describe the undescribable: 
I would not their vile breath should crisp the stream 
Wherein that image shall for ever dwell, 475 

The unruffled mirror of the loveliest dream 
That ever left the sky on the deep soul to beam. 



CHILDE HAROLD 19 

LIV 

In Santa Croce's holy precincts lie 
Ashes which make it holier, dust which is 
Even in itself an immortality, 480 

Though there were nothing save the past, and this, 
The particle of those sublimities 
Which have relapsed to chaos: here repose 
Angelo's, Alfieri's bones, and his. 
The starry Galileo, with his woes; 485 

Here Machiavelli^s earth returned to whence it rose. 

LV 

These are four minds, which, like the elements. 

Might furnish forth creation. Italy! 

Time, w^hich hath wronged thee with ten thousand 

rents 
Of thine imperial garment, shall deny, 490 

And hath denied, to every other sky 
Spirits which soar from ruin: — thy decay 
Is still impregnate with divinity. 
Which guilds it with revivifying ray; 
Such as the great of yore, Canova is to-day. 495 

LVI 

But where repose the all Etruscan three — 
Dante, and Petrarch, and, scarce less than they, 
The Bard of Prose, creative spirit, he 
Of the Hundred Tales of Love — where did they lay 
Their bones, distinguished from our common clay 500 
In death as life ? Are they resolved to dust, 
And have their country's marbles nought to say? 
Could not her quarries furnish forth one bust ? 
Did they not to her breast their filial earth intrust? 



20 CHILDE HAROLD 



LVII 



Ungrateful Florence! Dante sleeps afar, 505 

Like Scipio, buried by the upbraiding shore; 
Thy factions in their worse than civil war, 
Proscribed the bard whose name for evermore 
Their children's children would in vain adore 
With the remorse of ages; and the crown 510 

Which Petrarch's laureate brow supremely wore, 
Upon a far and foreign soil had grown, 
His life, his fame, his grave, though rifled — not thine own. 

LVIII 

Boccaccio to his parent earth bequeathe 
His dust; and lies it not her Great among, 515 

With many a sweet and solemn requiem breathed 
O'er him who formed the Tuscan's siren tongue? 
That music in itself, whose sounds are song, 
The poetry of speech ? No ; — even his tomb 
Up torn must bear the hyaena bigot's wrong, 520 

No more amidst the meaner dead find room. 
Nor claim a passing sigh, because it told for whom! 

LIX 

And Santa Croce wants their mighty dust, — 
Yet for this want more noted, as of yore 
The -Caesar's pageant, shorn of Brutus' bust, 525 
Did but of Rome's best Son remind her more. 
Happier Ravenna! on thy hoary shore. 
Fortress of falling empire, honour' d sleeps 
The immortal exile; Arqua, too, her store 
Of tuneful relics proudly claims and keeps, 530 

While Florence vainly begs her banish'd dead, and 
weeps. 



CHILDE HAROLD 21 

LX 

What is her pyramid of precious stones, 
Of porphyry, jasper, agate, and all hues 
Of gem and marble, to encrust the bones 
Of merchant-dukes'? The momentary dews 535 
Which, sparkling to the twilight stars, infuse 
Freshness in the green turf that wraps the dead, 
Whose names are mausoleums of the Muse, 
Are gently prest with far more reverent tread 
Than ever paced the slab which paves the princely 
head. 540 

LXI 

There be more things to greet the heart and eyes 
In Arno's dome of Art's most princely shrine. 
Where Sculpture with her rainbow sister vies; 
There be more marvels yet — but not for mine; 
For I have been accustom'd to entwine 545 

My thoughts with Nature rather in the fields, 
Than Art in galleries: though a work divine 
Calls for my spirit's homage, yet it yields 
Less than it feels, because the weapon which it wields 

LXII 

Is of another temper, and I roam 550 

By Thrasimene's lake, in the defiles 
Fatal to Roman rashness, more at home; 
For there the Carthaginian's warlike wiles 
Come back before me as his skill beguiles 
The host between the mountains and the shore, 555 
Where Courage falls in her despairing files. 
And torrents, swollen to rivers with their gore, 
Reek through the sultry plain with legions scattered o'er, 



22 



CHILDE HAROLD 



LXIII 

Like to a forest felFd by mountain winds; 
And such the storm of battle on this day, 560 ' 

And such the frenzy, whose convulsion blinds 
To all save carnage, that; beneath the fray. 
An earthquake reel'd unheededly away! 
None felt stern Nature rocking at his feet, 
And yawning forth a grave for those who lay 565 
Upon their bucklers for a winding sheet; 
Such is the absorbing hate when warring nations meet 1 



LXIV 

The earth to them was as a rolling bark 
Which bore them to Eternity; they saw 
The Ocean round, but had no time to mark 570 
The motions of their vessel; Nature's law, 
In them suspended, reck'd not of the awe 
Which reigns when mountains tremble, and the birds 
Plunge in the clouds for refuge, and withdraw 
From their down-toppling nests ; and bellowing herds 
Stumble o'er heaving plains, and man's dread hath no 



words. 



576 



LXV 



Far other scene is Thrasimene now; 
Her' lake a sheet of silver, and her plain 
Rent by no ravage save the gentle plough; 
Her aged trees rise thick as once the slain 580 

Lay where their roots are; but a brook hath ta'en — 
A little rill of scanty stream and bed — 
A name of blood from that day's sanguine rain; 
And Sanguinetto tells ye where the dead 
Made the earth wet and turn'd the unwilling waters red. 



CHILDE HAROLD 



23 



LXVI 

But thou, Clitumnus, in thy sweetest wave 586 

Of the most living crystal that was e'er 
The haunt of river nymph, to gaze and lave 
Her limbs where nothing hid them, thou dost rear 
Thy grassy banks w^hereon the milk-white steer 590 
Grazes, — the purest god of gentle waters. 
And most serene of aspect, and most clear 1 
Surely that stream was unprofaned by slaughters — 
A mirror and a bath for Beauty's youngest daughters! 



LXVII 

And on thy happy shore a temple still, 595 

Of small and delicate proportion, keeps, 
Upon a mild declivity of hill. 
Its memory of thee; beneath it sweeps 
Thy current's calmness; oft from out it leaps 
The finny darter with the glittering scales, 600 

Who dwells and revels in thy glassy deeps; 
While, chance, some scatter'd water-lily sails 
Down where the shallower wave still tells its bubbling 
tales 

LXVIII 

Pass not unblest the Genius of the place! 
If through the air a zephyr more serene 605 

Win to the brow, 'tis his; and if ye trace 
Along his margin a more eloquent green. 
If on the heart the freshness of the scene 
Sprinkle its coolness, and from the dry dust 
Of weary life a moment lave it clean 610 

With Nature's baptism, — 'tis to him ye must 
Pay orisons for this suspension of disgust. 



24 CHILDE HAROLD 



LXIX 



1 



The roar of waters! — from the headlong height 
Velino cleaves the wave-worn precipice; 
The fall of waters! rapid as the light 615 

The flashing mass foams shaking the abyss; 
The hell of waters! where they howl and hiss, 
And boil in endless torture; while the sweat 
Of their gieat agony, wrung out from this 
Their Phlegethon, curls round the rocks of jet 620 
That gird the gulf around, in pitiless horror set, 

LXX 

And mounts in spray the skies, and thence again 
Returns in an unceasing shower, which round, 
With its unemptied cloud of gentle rain, 
Is an eternal April to the ground, 625 

Making it all one emerald: — how profound 
The gulf! and how the giant element 
From rock to rock leaps with delirious bound, 
Crushing the cliffs, which, downward w^orn and rent, 
With his fierce footsteps, yield in chasms a fearful 
vent 630 

LXXI 

To the broad column which rolls on, and shows 

More like the fountain of an infant sea 

Torn from the womb of mountains by the throes 

Of a new world, than only thus to be 

Parent of rivers, which flow gushingly, 635 

With many windings, through the vale: — Look back 

Lo, where it comes like an eternity. 

As if to sweep down all things in its track. 

Charming the eye with dread — a matchless cataract, 



CHILDE HAROLD 25 

LXXII 

Horribly beautiful! but on the verge, 640 

From side to side, beneath the glittering morn. 
An Iris sits, amidst the infernal surge, 
Like Hope upon a death-bed, and, unworn 
Its steady dyes while all around is torn 
By the distracted waters, bears serene 645 

Its brilliant hues with all their beams unshorn; 
Resembling, 'mid the torture of the scene, 
Love watching Madness with unalterable mien. 

LXXIII 

Once more upon the woody Apennine, 
The infant Alps, which — had I not before 65c 

Gazed on their mightier parents, where the pine 
Sits on more shaggy summits, and where roar 
The thundering lauwine — might be worshipped more; 
But I have seen the soaring Jungfrau rear 
Her never-trodden snow, and seen the hoar 655 

Glaciers of bleak Mont Blanc both far and near, 
And in Chimari heard the thunder-hills of fear, 

LXXIV. 

Th' Acroceraunian mountains of old name; 
And on Parnassus seen the eagles fly 
Like spirits of the spot, as 'twere for fame, 660 

For still they soar'd unutterably high: 
Fve looked on Ida with a Trojan's eye; 
Athos, Olympus, ^Etna, Atlas, made 
These hills seem things of lesser dignity, 
All, Save the lone Soracte's height, display'd 665 
Not now in snow, which asks the lyric Roman's aid 



26 CHILDE HAROLD 



LXXV. 



For our remembrance, and from out the plain 
Heaves like a long-swept wave about to break, 
And on the curl hangs pausing. Not in vain 
May he, who wdll, his recollections rake, 670 

And quote in classic raptures, and awake 
The hills with Latin echoes; I abhorr'd 
Too much, to conquer for the poet's sake, 
The driird dull lesson, forced down word by word 
In my repugnant youth, with pleasure to record 675 

LXXVI. 

Aught that recalls the daily drug which turn'd 
My sickening memory ; and, though Time hath taught 
My mind to meditate what then it learned, 
Yet such the fix'd inveteracy wrought 
By the impatience of my early thought, 680I 

That, with the freshness wearing out before 
My mind could relish what it might have sought, 
If free to choose, I cannot novv^ restore 
Its health; but what it then detested, still abhor. 

LXXVII. 

Then farewell, Horace; whom I hated so, 685 

Not for thy faults, but mine; it is a curse 
To understand, not feel thy lyric flow. 
To comprehend, but never love thy verse. 
Although no deeper Moralist rehearse 
Our little life, nor Bard prescribe his art, 690 

Nor livelier Satirist the conscience pierce. 
Awakening without wounding the touch'd heart; 
Yet fare thee well — upon Soracte's ridge we part. 



I 



CHILDE HAROLD 27 

LXXVIII. 

Oh Rome, my country! city of the soul! 
The orphans of the heart must turn to thee, 695 
Lone mother of dead empires, and control 
In their shut breasts their petty misery. 
What are our woes and sufferance? Come and see 
The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way 
O'er steps of broken thrones and temples. Ye! 700 
Whose agonies are evils of a day — 
A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay 

LXXIX. 

The Niobe of nations! there she stands. 
Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe; 
An empty urn within her withered hands, 705 

Whose holy dust was scattered long ago: 
The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now; 
The very sepulchres lie tenantless 
Of their heroic dwellers; — dost thou flow, 
Old Tiber, through a marble wilderness? 710 

Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress 1 

LXXX. 

The Goth, the Christian, Time, War, Flood, and Fire, 
Have dealt upon the seven-hilPd city's pride; 
She saw her glories star by star expire, 
And up the steep barbarian monarchs ride, 715 

Where the car climb'd the capitol; far and wide 
Temple and tower went down, nor left a site: — 
Chaos of ruins! who shall trace the void. 
O'er the dim fragments cast a lunar light, 719 

And say, ^ here was, or is,' where all is doubly night? 



2S CHILD£ HAROLD 



LXXXI. 



The double night of ages, and of her, 
Night's daughter. Ignorance, hath wrapt and wrapt 
All round us; we but feel our way to err: 
The ocean hath his chart, the stars their map, 
And Kjiowledge spreads them on her ample lap; 725 
But Rome is as the desert where we steer 
Stumbling o'er recollections; now we clap 
Our hands, and cry 'Eureka!' it is clear — 
When but some false mirage of ruin rises near. 

LXXXII. 

Alas, the lofty city! and alas, 730 

The trebly hundred triumphs! and the day 
When Brutus made the dagger's edge surpass 
The conqueror's sword in bearing fame away! 
Alas, for TuUy's voice, and Virgil's lay, 
And Livy's pictured page! — but these shall be 735 
Her resurrection; all beside — decay. 
Alas, for Earth, for never shall we see 
That brightness in her eye she bore when Rome was 
free! 

LXXXIII. 

'Oh thou, whose chariot roU'd on Fortune's wheel. 
Triumphant Sylla! thou, who didst subdue 740 

Thy country's foes ere thou wouldst pause to feel 
The wrath of thy own wrongs, or reap the due 
Of hoarded vengeance till thine eagles flew 
O'er prostrate Asia; — thou, who with thy frown 
Annihilated senates — Roman, too, 745 

With all thy vices, for thou didst lay down 
With an atoning smile a more than earthly crown, 



CHILDE HAROLD 29 

LXXXIV. 

The dictatorial wreath, — couldst thou divine 
To what would one day dwindle that which made 
Thee more than mortal? and that so supine 750 
By aught than Romans Rome should thus be laid ? 
She who was named Eternal; and array 'd 
Her warriors but to conquer — she who veil'd 
Earth with her haughty shadow, and displayed, 
Until the o'er-canopied horizon faiPd, 755 

Her rushing wings — Oh, she who was Almighty hail'dl 

LXXXV. 

Sylla was first of victors; but our own 
The sagest of usurpers, Cromwell; he 
Too swept off senates while he hew'd the throne 
Down to a block— -immortal rebel! See 760 

What crimes it costs to be a moment free 
And famous through all ages! but beneath 
His fate the moral lurks of destinv; 
His day of double victory and death 
Beheld him win two realms, and, happier, yield his 
breath. 765 

LXXXVI. 

The third of the same moon whose former course 
Had all but crowned him, on the self-same day. 
Deposed him gently from his throne of force, 
And laid him with the earth's preceding clay. 
And show'd not Fortune thus how fame and sway 
And all we deem delightful and consume 770 

Our souls to compass through each arduous way. 
Are in her eyes less happy than the tomb? 
Were they but so in man's, how different were his doom! 



30 CHILDE HAROLD 



LXXXVII. 



And thou, dread statue, yet existent in 775 

The austerest form of naked majesty! 
Thou who beheldest, 'mid the assassins' din, 
At thy bathed base the bloody Caesar lie, , 
Folding his robe in dying dignity. 
An offering to thine altar from the queen 780 

Of gods and men, great Nemesis! did he die. 
And thou, too, perish, Pompey? have ye been 
Victors of countless kings, or puppets cf a scene? 

LXXXVIII. 

And thou, the thunderstricken nurse of Rome! 
She-wolf, whose brazen-imaged dugs impart 785 
The milk of conquest yet within the dome 
Where, as a monument of antique art, 
Thou standest; mother of the mighty heart,. 
Which the great founder suck'd from thy wild teat. 
Scorched by the Roman Jove's ethereal dart, 790 
And thy limbs black with lightning — dost thou yet 
Guard thine immortal cubs, nor thy fond charge forget ? 

LXXXIX. 

Thou dost; but all thy foster-babes are dead — 
The men of iron; and the world hath rear'd 
Cities from out their sepulchres. Men bled 795 
In imitation of the things they fear'd 
And fought and conquer'd and the same course steer'd, 
At apish distance; but as yet none have, 
Nor could the same supremacy have near'd, 
Save one vain man, who is not in the grave, { 
But vanquish'd by himself, to his own slaves a slave — I 



CHILDE HAROLD 31 

xc. 

The fool of false dominion — and a kind 
Of bastard Caesar, following him of old 
With steps unequal; for the Roman's mind 
Was modell'd in a less terrestrial mould, 805 

With passions fiercer, yet a judgment cold, 
And an immortal instinct which redeem'd 
The frailties of a heart so soft, yet bold, 
Alcides with the distaff now he seem'd 809 

At Cleopatra's feet, — and now himself he beam'd, 

xci. 

And came — and saw — and conquered! But the man 
Who would have tamed his eagles down to flee. 
Like a train'd falcon, in the Gallic van, 
Which he, in sooth, long led to victory. 
With a deaf heart which never seem'd to be 815 
A listener to itself, was strangely framed; 
With but one weakest weakness — vanity, 
Coquettish in ambition — still he aim'd — 
At what ? can he avouch — or answer what he claim'd ? — 

XCII. 

And would be all or nothing — nor could w^ait 820 
For the sure grave to level him; few years 
Had fix'd him with the Caesars in his fate. 
On whom we tread. For this the conqueror rears 
The arch of triumph! and for this the tears 
And blood of earth flow on as they have flow'd, 825 
An universal deluge, which appears 
Without an ark for wretched man's abode, 
And ebbs but to reflow! — Renew thy rainbow, God! 



32 CHILDE HAROLD 

XCIII. 

What from this barren being do we reap? 
Our senses narrow, and our reason frail, 830 

Life short, and truth a gem which loves the deep, 
And all things weigh'd in custom's falsest scale; 
Opinion an omnipotence, — whose veil 
Mantles the earth with darkness, until right 
And wrong are accidents, and men grow pale 835 
Lest their own judgments should become too bright. 
And their free thoughts be crimes, and earth have 
too much light. 

xciv. 
And thus they plod in sluggish misery, 
Rotting from sire to sen, and age to age. 
Proud of their trampled nature, and so die, 843 

Eequeathing their hereditary rage 
To the new race of inborn slaves, who wage 
War for their chains, and rather than be free, 
Bleed gladiator-like and still engage 
Within the same arena where they see 845 

Their fellows fall before, like leaves of the same tree. 

xcv. 
I speak not of men's creeds — they rest between 
Man and his Maker — but of things allowed, 
Averr'd, and known^and daily, hourly seen — 
The yoke that is upon us doubly bow'd 850 

And the intent of tyranny avow'd. 
The edict of Earth's rulers, who are grown 
The apes of him who humbled once the proud 
And shook them from their slumbers on the throne; 
Too glorious, were this all his mighty arm had done. 855 



*?] 



CHILDE HAROLD 33 

XCVI. 

Can tyrants but by tyrants conquered be, 
And Freedom find no champion and no child 
Such as Columbia saw arise when she 
Sprung forth a Pallas, arm'd and undefiled? 
Or must such minds be nourished in the wild, 86o' 
Deep in the unpruned forest, 'midst the roar 
Of cataracts, where nursing nature smiled 
On infant Washington? Has Earth no more 
Such seeds within her breast, or Europe no such shore ? 

XCVII. 

But France got drunk with blood to vomit crime. 
And fatal have her Saturnalia been 866 

To Freedom's cause, in every age and clime; 
Because the deadly days which we have seen, 
And vile ambition, that built up between 
Man and his hopes an adamantine wall, 87a 

And the base pageant last upon the scene. 
Are grown the pretext for the eternal thrall 
Which nips life's tree, and dooms man's worst — his 
second fall. 

XCVIII. 

Yet, Freedom, yet thy banner, torn but flying, 874 
Streams like the thunder-storm against the wind ; 
Thy trumpet voice, though broken now and dying. 
The loudest still the tempest leaves behind: 
Thy tree hath lost its blossoms, and the rind, 
Chopp'd by the axe, looks rough and little worthy 
But the sap lasts, — and still the seed we find S^o 
Sown deep, even in the bosom of the North; 
So shall a })etter spring less bitter fruit bring forth. 



34 CHILDE HAROLD 

XCIX. 

There is a stern round tower of other days, 
Firm as a fortress, with its fence of stone. 
Such as an army's baffled strength delays, 885 

Standing wdth half its battlements alone. 
And with tw^o thousand years of ivy grown, 
The garland of eternity, w^here wave 
The green leaves over all by time overthrown; — 
What was this tower of strength ? within its cave 
What treasure lay so lock'd, so hid ? A woman's grave. 

c. 

But who was she, the lady of the dead, 892 

Tomb'd in a palace? Was she chaste and fair? 
Worthy a king's — or more — a Roman's bed ? 
What race of chiefs and heroes did she bear? 895' 
What daughter of her beauties was the heir? 
How lived, how loved, how died she ? Was she not 
So honour'd — and conspicuously there. 
Where meaner relics must not dare to rot. 
Placed to commemorate a more than mortal lot ? 900 

CI. 

Was she as those who love their lords, or they 
Who love the lords of others? — such have been 
Even in the olden time, Rome's annals say. 
Was she a matron of Cornelia's mien, 
Or the light air of Egypt's graceful queen, 905 

Profuse of joy — or 'gainst it did she war, 
Inveterate in virtue ? Did she lean 
To the soft side of the heart, or wisely bar 
Love from amongst her griefs ? — for such the affections 
are. 909 



4 



CHILDE HAROLD 35 

CII. 

Perchance she died in youth: it may be, bow'd 
With woes far heavier than the ponderous tomb 
That weigh'd upon her gentle dust, a cloud 
Might gather o'er her beauty, and a gloom 
In her dark eye, prophetic of the doom 914 

Heaven gives its favourites — early death ; 'yet shed 
A sunset charm around her, and illume 
With hectic light, the Hesperus of the dead. 
Of her consuming cheek the autumnal leaf -like red. 

cm. 
Perchance she died in age — surviving all, 
Charms, kindred, children — with the silver gray 
On her long tresses, which might yet recall, 921 

It may be, still a something of the day 
When they were braided, and her proud array 
And lovely form were envied, praised, and eyed 
By Rome. — But whither would Conjecture stray? 925 
Thus much alone we know — Metella died. 
The wealthiest Roman's wife. Behold his love or pride 1 

CIV. 

I know not why, but standing thus by thee, 
It seems as if I had thine inmate known. 
Thou tomb! and other days come back on me 930 
With recollected music, though the tone 
Is changed and solemn, like the cloudy groan 
Of dying thunder on the distant wind; 
Yet could I seat me by this ivied stone 
Till I had bodied forth the heated mind 935 

Forms from the floating wreck which Ruin leaves 
behind: 



36 CHILDE HAROLD 

cv. 

And from the planks, far shattered o'er the rocks, 
Built me a little bark of hope, once more 
To battle with the ocean and the shocks 
Of the loud breakers, and the ceaseless roar 940 
Which rushes on the solitary shore 
Where all lies founder'd that was ever dear. 
But could I gather from the wave-worn store 
Enough for my rude boat, w^here should I steer? 
There woos no home, nor hope, nor life, save what is 
here. 945 

cvi. 

Then let the winds howl on! their harmony 
• Shall henceforth be my music, and the night 
The sound shall temper with the owlets' cry. 
As I now hear them, in the fading light 
Dim o'er the bird of darkness' native site, 950 

Answering each other on the Palatine, 
With their large eyes all glistening gray and bright, 
And sailing pinions. Upon such a shrine 
What are our petty griefs ? — let me not number mine. 

CVII. 

Cypress and ivy, weed and w^allflower grown 955 
Matted and mass'd together, hillocks heap'd 
On what were chambers, arch crush'd, column strown 
In fragments, choked up vaults, and frescos steep'd 
In subterranean damps where the owl peep'd, 
Deeming it midnight: — Temples, baths, or halls? 960 
Pronounce who can: for all that learning reap'd 
From her research hath been, that these are walls — 
Behold the Imperial Mount! 'tis thus the mighty falls. 



CHILDE HAROLD 37 

CVIII. 

There is vhe moral of all human tales; 
'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past, 965 

First Freedom and then Glory — when that fails, 
Wealth, vice, corruption, — barbarism at last. 
And History, with all her volumes vast. 
Hath but one page, — 'tis better written here 
Where gorgec)US Tyranny hath thus amass'd 970 
All treasures, all delights, that eye or ear 

Heart soul could seek, tongue ask. — Away with words 
draw near, 

cix 
Admire, exult — despise — laugh, weep — for here 
There is such matter for all feeling: — Man! 
Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear, 975 

Ages and realms are crowded in this span, 
This mountain, whose obliterated plan 
The pyramid of empires pinnacled. 
Of Glory's gewgaws shining in the van 
Till the sun's rays with added flame were filled! 

Where are its golden roofs ? where those who dared to 
build? 981 

ex. 
Tully was not so eloquent as thou, 
Thou nameless column with the buried base! 
What are the laurels of the Caesar's brow? 
Crown me with ivy from his dwelling-place. 985 
Whose arch or pillar meets me in the face, 
Titus' or Trajan's? No— 'tis that of Time: 
Triumph, arch, pillar, all he doth displace 
Scofling; and apostolic statues climb 989 

To crush the imperial urn whose ashes slept sublime, 



38 CHILDE HAROLD 



CXI. 



Buried in air, the deep blue sky of Rome, 
And looking to the stars. They had contained 
A spirit which with these would find a home, 
The last of those who o'er the whole earth reign'd, 
The Roman globe, for after none sustained 995 

But yielded back his conquests: he was more 
Than a mere Alexander, and unstain'd 
With household blood and wine, serenely wore 
His sovereign virtues — still we Trajan's name adore. 

cxii. 

Where is the rock of Triumph, the high place 1000 
Where Rome embraced her heroes ? where the steep 
Tarpeian, fittest goal of Treason's race. 
The promontory w^hence the Traitor's Leap 
Cured all ambition? Did the conquerors heap 
Their spoils here ? Yes; and in yon field below, 1005 
A thousand years of silenced factions sleep — 
The Forum, where the immortal accents glow, 
And still the eloquent air breathes — burns with Cicero! 

CXIII. 

The field of freedom, faction, fame, and blood: 
Here a proud people's passions were exhaled, 10 10 
From the first hour of empire in the bud 
To that when further worlds to conquer fail'd; 
But long before had Freedom's face been veil'd, 
And Anarchy assumed her attributes; 
Till every lawless soldier who assail' d 10 15 

Trod on the trembling senates' slavish mutes, 
Or raised the venal voice of baser prostitutes. 



CHILDE HAROLD 39 

CXIV. 

Then turned me to her latest tribune's name, 
From her ten thousand tyrants turn to thee, 
Redeemer of dark centuries of shame — 1020 

The friend of Petrarch — hope of Italy — 
Rienzi! last of Romans! While the tree 
Of freedom's withered trunk puts forth a leaf 
Even for thy tomb a garland let it be — 1025 

The forum's champion, and the people's chief — 
Her new-born Numa thou — with reign, alas, too brief. 

cxv. 

Egeria, sweet creation of some heart 
Which found no mortal resting place so fair 
As thine ideal breast 1 whate'er thou art 
Or wert, — a young Aurora of the air, 1030 

The nympholepsy of some fond despair; 
Or, it might be, a beauty of the earth, 
Who found a more than common votary there 
Too much adoring; whatsoe'er thy birth, 1034 

Thou wert a beautiful thought, and softly bodied forth. 

cxvi. 
The mosses of thy fountain still are sprinkled 
With thine Elysian water-drops; the face 
Of thy cave-guarded spring, with years un wrinkled. 
Reflects the meek-eyed genius of the place. 
Whose green, wild margin now no more erase 1040 
Art's works; nor must the delicate waters sleep, 
Prison'd in marble; bubbling from the base 
Of the cleft statue, with a gentle leap 
The rill runs o'er, and round, fern, flowers, and ivy 
creep, 



40 CHILDE HAROLD 



CXVII. 



Fantastically tangled. The green hills 1045 

Are clothed with early blossoms, through the grass 
The (juick-eyed lizard rustles, and the bills 
Of summer-birds sing welcome as ye pass; 
Flowers fresh in hue, and many in their class, 
Implore the pausing step, and with their dyes 1050 
Dance in the soft breeze in a fairy mass; 
The sweetness of the violet's deep blue eyes 
Kiss'd by the breath of heaven, seems colour'd by its 
skies. 

CXVIII. 

Here didst thou dwell, in this enchanted covei*, 
Egerial thy all heavenly bosom beating 1055 

For the far footsteps of thy mortal lover. 
The purple Midnight veil'd that mystic meeting 
With her most starry canopy; and seating 
Thyself by thine adorer, what befell? 
This cave was surely shaped out for the greeting 
Of an enamoured Goddess, and the cell 1061 

Haunted by holy Love — the earliest oracle! 

cxix. 

And didst thou not, thy breast to his replying, 
Blend a celestial with a human heart; 
And Love, which dies as it was born, in sighing, 1065 
Share with immortal transports? Could thine art 
Make them indeed immortal, and impart 
The purity of heaven to earthly joys. 
Expel the venom and not blunt the dart — 
The dull satiety which all destroys — 1070 

And root from out the soul the deadly weed which cloys ? 



CHILDE HAROLD 41 

cxx. 

Alas! our young affections run to waste, 
Or water but the desert; whence arise 
But weeds of dark luxuriance, tares of haste. 
Rank at the core, though tempting to the eyes, 1075 
Flowers whose wild odours breathe but agonies. 
And trees whose gums are poison; — such the plants 
Which spring beneath her steps as Passion flies 
O'er the world's wilderness, and vainly pants 
For some celestial fruit forbidden to our wants. 1080 

cxxi. 

Oh Love! no habitant of earth thou art — 
An unseen seraph, we believe in thee, 
A faith whose martyrs are the broken heart, 
But never yet hath seen, nor e'er shall see 
The naked eye, thy form, as it should be; 1085 

The mind hath made thee, as it peopled heaven. 
Even with its own desiring phantasy. 
And to a thought such shape and image given. 
As haunts the unquench'd soul — parch'd — wearied — 
wrung — and riven. 

CXII. 

Of its own beauty is the mind diseased, 1090 

And fevers into false creation: — where. 
Where are the forms the sculptor's soul hath seized ? — 
In him alone. Can Nature show so fair? 
Where are the charms and virtues which we dare 
Conceive in boyhood and pursue as men, 1095 

The unreach'd Paradise of our despair. 
Which o'er-informs the pencil and the pen, 
And overpowers the page where it would bloom again ? 



42 CHILDE HAROLD 

CXXIII. 

Who loves, raves — 'tis youth's frenzy; but the cure 
Is bitterer still. As charm by charm unwinds iioo 
Which robed our idols, and we see too sure 
Nor w^orth nor beauty dwells from out the mind's 
Ideal shape of such; yet still it binds 
The fatal spell, and still it draws us on. 
Reaping the whirlwind from the oft-sown winds; 
The stubborn heart, its alchemy begun, 1106 

Seems ever near the prize, — wealthiest when most 
undone. 

cxxiv. 
We wither from our youth, we gasp away — 
Sick — sick; unfound the boon — unslaked the thirst, 
Though to the last, in verge of our decay, mo 

Some phantom lures, such as we sought at first — 
But all too late, — so are we doubly curst. 
Love, fame, ambition, avarice — 'tis the same, 
Each idle, and all ill, and none the worst — 
For all are meteors with a different name, n^S^ 

And Death the sable smoke where vanishes the flame. 

cxxv. 
Few — none — find what they love or could have loved,] 
Though accident, blind contact, and the strong 
Necessity of loving, have removed 
Antipathies — but to recur, ere long, 
Envenom' d with irrevocable wrong; 
And circumstance, that unspiritual god 
And miscreator, makes and helps along 
Our coming evils with a crutch-like rod, 
Whose touch turns Hope to dust, — the dust we all have j 
trod. 1 1 25 



CHILDE HAROLD 43 

cxxvi. 

Our life is a false nature, 'tis not in 
The harmony of things, — this hard decree, 
This uneradicable taint of sin, 

This boundless upas, this all-blasting tree ii2g 

Whose root is earth, whose leaves and branches be 
The skies which rain their plagues on men like dew — 
Disease, death, bondage — all the woes we see — 
And worse, the woes we see not — which throb through 
The immedicable soul, with heart-aches ever new. 

CXXVII. 

Yet let us ponder boldly; 'tis a base 1135 

Abandonment of reason to resign 
Our right of thought, our last and only place 
Of refuge — this, at least, shall still be mine. 
Though from our birth the faculty divine 1139 

Is chain'd and tortured — cabin'd, cribb'd, confined. 
And bred in darkness, lest the truth should shine 
Too brightly on the unprepared mind. 
The beam pours in, for time and skill will couch the 
blind. 

CXXVIII. 

Arches on arches! as it were that Rome, 
Collecting the chief trophies of her line, 1145 

Would build up all her triumphs in one dome, — 
Her Coliseum stands; the moonbeams shine 
As 'twere its natural torches, for divine 
Should be the light which streams here, to illume 
This long-explored but still exhaustless mine 1150 
Of contemplation; and the azure gloom 
Of an Italian night, where the deep skies assume 



44 CHILDE HAROLD 



cxxix. 



I 



Hues which have words and speak to ye of heaven, 
Floats o'er this vast and wondrous monument, 
And shadows forth its glory. There is given 1155 
Unto the things of earth, which Time hath bent, 
A spirit's feeling; and where he hath leant 
His hand, but broke his scythe, there is a power, 
And m.agic in the ruin'd battlement. 
For which the palace of the present hour 11 60 

Must yield its pomp and wait till ages are its dower. 

cxxx. 

Oh, Time! the beautifier of the dead, 
Adorner of the ruin, comforter 
And only healer when the heart hath bled — 
Timel the corrector where our judgments err, 1165 
The test of truth, love, — sole philosopher, 
For all besides are sophists, from thy thrift, 
Which never loses though it doth defer — 
Time, the avenger! unto thee I lift 11 69 

My hands and eyes and heart, and crave of thee a gift: 

cxxxi. 

Amidst this wreck, where thou hast made a shrine 
And temple more divinely desolate. 
Among thy mightier offerings here are mine. 
Ruins of years — though few, yet full of fate:— 
If thou hast ever seen me to elate, 11 75 

Hear me not; but if calmly I have borne 
Good, and reserved my pride against the hate 
Which shall not whelm me, let me not have worn 
This iron in my soul in vain — shall they not mourn ? 



CHILDE HAROLD 45 

CXXXII. 

And thou, who never yet of human wrong 1180 

Left the unbalanced scale, great Nemesis! 
Here, where the ancient paid thee homage long — 
Thou, who didst call the Furies from the abyss, 
And round Orestes bade them howl and hiss 
For that unnatural retribution — just, 1185 

Had it but been from hands less near — in this 
Thy former realm, I call thee from the dustl 
Dost thou not hear my heart? — Awake! thou shall 
and must. 

CXXXIII. 

It is not that I may not have incurred 
For my ancestral faults or mine the wound 11 90 
I bleed withal, and, had it been conferr'd 
With a just weapon, it had flow'd unbound; 
But now my blood shall not sink in the ground; 
To thee I do devote it — thou shalt take 1194 

The vengeance, which shall yet be sought and found, 
Which if / have not taken for the sake — 
But let that pass — I sleep, but thou shalt yet awake. 

cxxxiv. 

And if my voice break forth, 'tis not that now 

I shrink from what is suffer'd; let him speak 

Who hath beheld decline upon my brow, 1200 

Or seen my mind's convulsion leave it weak: 

But in this page a record will I seek. 

Not in the air shall these my words disperse, 

Though I be ashes; a far hour shall wreak 

The deep prophetic fulness of this verse, 1205 

And pile on human heads the mountain of my curse! 



46 CHILDE HAROLD 



cxxxv. 



That curse shall be Forgiveness. Have I not — 
Hear me, my mother Earth! behold it, Heaven! — 
Have I not had to wrestle with my lot? 
Have I not suffered things to be forgiven? 1210 

Have I not had my brain sear'd, my heart riven, 
Hopes sapp'd, name blighted. Life's life lied away? 
And only not to desperation driven, 
Because not altogether of such clay 
As rots into the souls of those whom I survey. 12 15 

cxxxvi. 

From mighty wrongs to petty perfidy 
■ Have I not seen what human things could do? 
From the loud roar of foaming calumny 
To the small whisper of the as paltry few, 
And subtler venom of the reptile crew, 1220 

The Janus glance of whose significant eye. 
Learning to lie with silence, w^ould seem true, 
And without utterance, save the shrug or sigh. 
Deal round to happy feels its speechless obloquy. 

CXXXVII. 

But I have lived, and have not lived in vain: 1225 
My mind may lose its force, my blood its fire. 
And my frame perish even in conquering pain; 
But there is that within me which shall tire 
Torture and Time, and breathe when I expire; 
Something unearthly which they deem not of, 1230 
Like the remember'd tone of a mute lyre. 
Shall on their softened spirits sink, and move 
In hearts all rocky now the late remorse of love. 



CHILDE HAROLD 47 

CXXXVIII. 

The seal is set. — Now welcome, thou dread power! 
Nameless, yet thus omnipotent, w^hich here 1235 
Walk'st in the shadow of the midnight hour 
With a deep awe, yet all distinct from fear; 
Thy haunts are ever where the dead walls rear 
Their ivy mantles, and the solemn scene 
Derives from thee a sense so deep and clear 1240 
That we become a part of what has been. 
And grow unto the spot, all-seeing but unseen. 

CXXXIX. 

And here the buzz of eager nations ran. 
In murmur'd pity or loud-roar'd applause, 
As man was slaughter'd by his fellow man. 1245 
And wherefore slaughter'd? wherefore, but because 
Such were the bloody Circus' genial laws. 
And the imperial pleasure. — Wherefore not? 
What matters where we fall to fill the maws 
Of worms — on battle-plains or listed spot? 1250 

Both are but theatres where the chief actors rot. 

CXL. 

I see before me the Gladiator lie: 
He leans upon his hand — his manly brow 
Consents to death, but conquers agony. 
And his droop'd head sinks gradually low — 1255 
And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow 
From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one, 
Like the first of a thunder-showier; and now 
The arena swims around him — he is gone. 
Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hail'd the wretch 
who won. 1260 



48 CHILDE HAROLD 

CXLI. 

He heard it, but he heeded not — his eyes 
Were with his heart and that was far away; 
He reck'd not of the hfe he lost nor prize, 
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay, 
There were his young barbarians all at play, 1265^ 
There was their Dacian mother — he, their sire, 
Butcher'd to make a Roman holiday — 
All this rush'd with his blood. — Shall he expire 
And unavenged? — Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire I 

CXLII. 

But here, where Murder breathed her bloody steam; 
And there, w^here buzzing nations choked the ways, 
And roar'd or murmur'd like a mountain stream 
Dashing or winding as its torrent strays; 
Here, where the Roman millions' blame or praise 
Was death or life, the playthings of a crowd, 1275 
My voice sounds much, and fall the stars' faint rays 
On the arena void — seats crush'd — walls bow'd — 
And galleries, where my steps seem echoes strangely 
loud. 

CXLIII. 

A ruin — yet what ruin! From its mass 
Walls, palaces, half-cities, have been rear'd; 1280 
Yet oft the enormous skeleton ye pass. 
And marvel where the spoil could have appeared. 
Hath it indeed been plundered, or but clear'd? 
Alas! developed, opens the decay, 
When the colossal fabric's form is near'd: 1285 

It will not bear the brightness of the day, 
Which streams too much on all years, man, have reft 
away. 



CHILDE HAROLD 49 

CXLIV. 

But when the rising moon begins to climb 
Its topmost arch and gently pauses there; 1289 

When the stars twinkle through the loops of time, 
And the low night-breeze waves along the air 
The garland forest, which the gray walls wear 
Like laurels on the bald first Caesar's head; 
When the light shines serene but doth not glare, 
Then in this magic circle raise the dead: 1295 

Heroes have trod this spot — 'tis on their dust ye tread. 

CXLV. 

^ While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand; 

When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall; 

And when Rome falls — the World.' From our own 

land 
Thus spake the pilgrims o'er this mighty wall 1300 
In Saxon times, which we a"re wont to call 
Ancient; and these three mortal things are still 
On their foundations, and unalter'd all; 
Rome and her Ruin past Redemption's skill. 
The World, the same wide den — of thi.evfes, or what ye 

will. 1305 

CXLVI. 

Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime — 
Shrine of all saints and temple of all gods. 
From Jove to Jesus — spared and blest by time; 
Looking tranquillity, while falls or nods 1309 

Arch, empire, each thing round thee, and man plods 
His way through thorns to ashes — glorious dome! 
Shalt thou not last? Time's scythe and tyrants' rods 
Shiver upon thee — sanctuary and home 
Of art and piety — Pantheon! — pride of Rome! 



50 CHILDE HAROLD 

CXLVII. 

Relic of nobler days and noblest arts! 13 15 

DespoiPd, yet perfect, with thy circle spreads 
A holiness appealing to all hearts — 
To art a model; and to him who treads 
Rome for the sake of ages, Glory sheds 
Her light through thy sole aperture; to those 1320 
Who worship, here are altars for their beads; 
And they who feel for genius may repose 
Their eyes on honour' d forms whose busts around them 
close. 

CXLVIII. 

There is a dungeon, in whose dim, drear light 
What do I gaze on? Nothing: Look again! 1325 
Two forms are slowly shadow'd on my sight — 
Two insulated phantoms of the brain: 
It is not so; I see them full and plain — 
An old man, and a female young and fair, 
Fresh as a nursing mother, in whose vein 1330 

The blood is nectar; — but what doth she there 
With, her unmantled neck, and bosom white and bare ? 

CXLIX. 

Full swells the deep pure fountain of young life, 
Where on the heart smd from the heart we took 
Our first and sweetest nurture, when the wife. 
Blest into mother, in the innocent look 1336 

Or even the piping cry of lips that brook 
No pain and small suspense, a joy perceives 
Man knows not, when from out its cradled nook 
She sees her little bud put forth its leaves — 1340 
What may the fruit be yet? — I know not — Cain was 
Eve's. 



CHILDE HAROLD 51 

CL. 

But here youth offers to old age the food, 
The milk of his own gift: — it is her sire 
To whom she renders back the debt of blood 
Born with her birth. No; he shall not expire 1345 
While in those warm and lovely veins the fire 
Of health and holy feeling can provide 
Great Nature's Nile, whose deep stream rises higher 
Than Egypt's river: — from that gentle side 
Drink, drink and live, old man! Heaven's realm holds 
no such tide. 1350 

CLI. 

The starry fable of the milky way 
Has not thy story's purity; it is 
A constellation of a sweeter ray, 
And sacred Nature triumphs more in this 
Reverse of her decree than in the abyss 1355 

Where sparkle distant worlds. Oh, holiest nurse! 
No drop of that clear stream its way shall miss 
To thy sire's heart, replenishing its source 
With life, as our freed souls rejoin the universe. 

CLII. 

Turn to the Mole which Hadrian rear'd on high. 
Imperial mimic of old Egypt's piles, 1361 

Colossal copyist of deformity. 
Whose travell'd phantasy from the far Nile's 
Enormous model doom'd the artist's toils 
To build for giants, and for his vain earth, 1365 
His shrunken ashes, raise this dome. How smiles 
The gazer's eye with philosophic mirth. 
To view the huge design which sprung from such a birth ! 



52 CHILDE HAROLD 

CLIII. 

But lo, the dome, the vast and wondrous dome 
To which Diana's marble was a cell, 1370 

Christ's mighty shrine above his martyr's tomb! 
I have beheld the Ephesian's miracle — 
Its columns strew the wilderness, and dwell 
The hyaena and the jackal in their shade; 
I have beheld Sophia's bright roofs swell 1375 

Their glittering mass i' the sun, and have survey'd 
Its sanctuary the while thq usurping Moslem pray'd; 

CLIV. 

But thou, of temples old or altars new, 
Standest alone, with nothing like to thee — 



Worthiest of God, the holy and the true, 1380 

Since Zion's desolation, when that He 
Forsook his former city, w^hat could be, 
Of earthly structures, in his honour piled 
Of a sublimer aspect? Majesty, 1384 

Power, Glory, Strength, and Beauty, all are aisled 
In this eternal ark of worship undefiled. 

CLV. 

Enter: its grandeur overwhelms thee not; 
And why? it is not lessen'd; but thy mind, 
Expanded by the genius of the spot, 
Has grown colossal, and can only find 1390 

A fit abode, wherein appear enshrined 
Thy hopes of immortality; and thou 
Shalt one day, if found worthy, so defined, 
See thy God face to face as thou dost now 
His Holy of Holies, nor be blasted by his brow. " 1395 



CHILDE HAROLD 53 

CLVI. 

Thou movest — but increasing with the advance, 
Like climbing some great Alp, which still doth rise 
Deceived by its gigantic elegance; 
Vastness which grows, but grows to harmonise — 
All musical in its immensities; 1400 

Rich marbles, richer painting, shrines where flame 
The lamps of gold, and haughty dome which vies 
In air with Earth's chief structures, though their 

frame 
Sits on the firm-set ground — and this the clouds must 

claim. 

CLVII. 

Thou seest not all; but piecemeal thou must break 
To separate contemplation the great whole; 1406 
And as the ocean many bays will make. 
That ask the eye — so here condense thy soul 
To more immediate objects, and control 
Thy thoughts until thy mind hath got by heart 
Its eloquent proportions, and unroll 141 1 

In mighty graduations, part by part, 
The glory which at once upon thee did not dart, 

CLVIII. 

Not by its fault — but thine. Our outward sense 
Is but of gradual grasp: and as it is 14 15 

That what we have of feeling most intense 
Outstrips our faint expression; even so this 
Outshining and overwhelming edifice 
Fools our fond gaze, and greatest of the great 
Defies at first our Nature's littleness, 1420 

Till, growing with its growth, we thus dilate 
Our spirits to the size of that they contemplate. 



54 CHILDE HAROLD 

CLIX. 

Then pause, and be enlightened; there is more 
In such a survey than the sating gaze 1424 

Of wonder pleased, or awe which would adore 
The worship of the place, or the mere praise 
Of art and its great masters, who could raise 
What former time, nor skill, nor thought could plan; 
The fountain of sublimity displays 1429 

Its depth, and thence may draw the mind of man 
Its golden sands, and learn what great conceptions can. 

CLX. 

Or, turning to the Vatican, go see 
Laocoon's torture dignifying pain — 
A father's love and mortal's agony 
With an immortal's patience blending. Vain 1434 
The struggle; vain, against the coiling strain 
And gripe and deepening of the dragon's grasp, 
The old man's clench; the long envenom'd chain 
Rivets the living links, the enormous asp 
Enforces pang on pang, and stifles gasp, on gasp, 1440 

CLXI. 

Or view the Lord of the unerring bow, 
The God of life and poesy and light, — 
The Sun in human limbs array'd, and brow 
All radiant from his triumph in the fight; 
The shaft hath just been shot — the arrow bright 
With an immortal's vengeance; in his eye 1446^ 

And nostril beautiful disdain and might 
And majesty flash their full lightnings by, 
Developing in that one glance the Diety. 



CHILDE HAROLD 5b 

CLXII. 

But in his delicate form — a dream of love, 1450 

Shaped by some solitary nymph, whose breast 
Long'd for a deathless lover from above 
And madden'd in that vision — are exprest 
All that ideal beauty ever blessed 
The mind with in its most unearthly mood, 1455 
When each conception was a heavenly guest — 
A ray of immortality — and stood. 
Starlike, around, until they gathered to a god! 

OLXIII. 

And if it be Prometheus stole from Heaven 
The fire which we endure, it was repaid 1460 

By him to whom the energy was given 
Which this poetic marble hath arrayed 
With an eternal glory — which, if made 
By human hands, is not of human thought; 
And Time himself hath hallow'd it, nor laid 1465 
One ringlet in the dust; nor hath it caught 
A tinge of years, but breathes the flame with which 
'twas wrought. 

CLXIV. 

But where is he, the Pilgrim of my song. 
The being who upheld it through the past ? 
Methinks he cometh late and tarries long. 1470 

He is no more — these breathings are his last, 
His wanderings done, his visions ebbing fast, 
And he himself as nothing: — if he was 
Aught but a phantasy, and could be classed 
With forms which live and suffer — let that pass — 
His shadow fades away into destruction's mass, 1475 



56 CHILDE HAROLD 

CLXV. 

Which gathers shadow, substance, life, and all 
That we inherit in its mortal shroud, 
And spreads the dim and universal pall 1479 

Through which all things grow phantoms ; and the cloud 
Between us sinks and all which ever glow'd. 
Till Glory's self is tw^ilight, and displays 
A melancholy halo scarce allow'd 
To hover on the verge of darkness; — rays 1484 

Sadder than saddest night, for they distract the gaze, 

CLXVI. 

And send us prying into the abyss. 
To gather what we shall be when the frame 
Shall be resolved to something less than this 
Its wTetched essence; and to dream of fame. 
And wipe the dust from ofi the idle name 1490 

We never more shall hear, — but never more. 
Oh, happier thought! can we be made the same: 
It is enough in sooth that once w^e bore 
These fardels of the heart — the heart whose sweat was 
gore. 

CLXVII. 

Harkl forth from the abyss a voice proceeds, 1495 
A long low distant murmur of dread sound. 
Such as arises when a nation bleeds 
With some deep and immedicable wound; 
Through storm and darkness yawns the rending 

ground ; 
The gulf is thick with phantoms, but the chief 1500 
Seems royal still, though with her head discrown'd; 
And pale, but lovely, with maternal grief 
She clasps a babe to whom her breast yields no relief. 



CHILDE HAROLD 57 

CLXVIII. 

Scion of chiefs and monarchs, where art thou ? 
Fond hope of many nations, art thou dead? 1505 
Could not the grave forget thee, and lay low 
Some less majestic, less beloved head ? 
In the sad midnight, while thy heart still bled, 
The mother of a moment, o'er thy boy, 
Death hush'd that pang for ever; with thee fled 
The present happiness and promised joy 15 11 

V/hich fiird the imperial isles so full it seem'd to cloy. 

CLXIX. 

Peasants bring forth in safety. — Can it be, 
Oh thou wert so happy, so adored! 15 14 

Those who weep not for kings shall weep for thee, 
And Freedom's heart, grown heavy, cease to hoard 
Her many griefs for One; for she had pour'd 
Her orisons for thee, and o'er thy head 
Beheld her Iris. — Thou, too, lonely lord. 
And desolate consort — ^vainly wert thou wedl 1520 
The husband of a year! the father of the dead! 

CLXX. 

Of sackcloth was thy wedding garment made; 
Thy bridal's fruit is ashes; in the dust 
The fair-hair'd Daughter of the Isles is laid. 
The love of millions! How we did intrust 1525 
Futurity to her! and, though it must 
Darken above our bones, yet fondly deem'd 
Our children should obey her child, and bless'd 
Her and her hoped-for seed, whose promise seem'd 
Like stars to shepherds' eyes: — 'twas but a meteor 
beam'd 



58 CHILDE HAROLD 



CLXXI. 



4 



Woe unto us, not her; for she sleeps well: 1531 

The fickle reek of popular breath, the tongue 
Of hollow counsel, the false oracle, 
Which from the birth of monarchy hath wrung 
Its knell in princely ears till the o'er-stung 1535 

Nations have arm'd in madness, th-e strange fate 
Which tumbles mightiest sovereigns, and hath flung 
Against their blind omnipotence a weight 
Within the opposing scale which crushes soon or late, — 

CLXXII. 

These might have been her destiny; but no, 1540 
Our hearts deny it: and so young, so fair, 
Good without effort, great without a foe; 
But now a bride and mother — and now there! 
How many ties did that stern moment tear! 
From thy Sire's to his humblest subject's breast 
Is linked the electric chain of that despair, 1546 
Whose shock was as an earthquake's, and opprest 
The land which loved thee so that none could love thee 
best. 

CLxxin. 

Lo, Nemi! navell'd in the woody hills 
So far, that the uprooting wind which tears 1550 
The oak from his foundation, and which spills 
The ocean o'er its boundary, and bears 
Its foam against the skies, reluctant spares 
The oval mirror of thy glassy lake; — 
And, calm as cherish'd hate, its surface wears 1555 
A deep cold settled aspect nought can shake. 
All coiled into itself and round, as sleeps the snake. 



I 



CHILDE HAROLD 59 

CLXXIV. 

And near Albano's scarce divided waves 
Shine from a sister valley; and afar 
The Tiber winds, and the broad ocean laves 1560 
The Latian coast where sprung the Epic war, 
'Arms and the Man,^ whose re-ascending star 
Rose o'er an empire: but beneath thy right 
Tully reposed from Rome; and where yon bar 
Of girdling mountains intercepts the sight 1565 

The Sabine farm was tilPd, the weary bard's delight. 

CLXXV. 

But I forget. — ^My Pilgrim's shrine is w^on, 
And he and I must part — so let it be: 
His task and mine alike are nearly done; 
Yet once more let us look upon the sea; 1570 

The midland ocean breaks on him and me. 
And from the Alban Mount we now behold 
Our friend of youth, that ocean, which when we 
Beheld it last by Calpe's rock unfold 
Those waves we follow'd on till the dark Euxine roll'd 

CLXXVI. 

Upon the blue Symplegades. Long years — 1576 
Long, though not very many — since have done 
Their work on both; some suffering and some tears 
Have left us nearly where we had begun: 
Yet not in vain our mortal race hath run; 1580 

We have had our reward, and it is here, — 
That we can yet feel gladden'd by the sun. 
And reap from earth, sea, joy almost as dear 
As if there were no man to trouble what is clear. 



60 CHILDE HAROLD 



CLXXVII. 



Oh! that the Desert were my dwelling place, 1585 
With one fair spirit for my minister, 
That I might all forget the human race, 
And, hating no one, love but only her! 
Ye Elements, in whose ennobKng stir 
I feel myself exalted, can ye not 1590 

Accord me such a being? Do I err 
In deeming such inhabit many a spot. 
Though with them to converse can rarely be our lot ? 

CLXXVIII. 

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods. 
There is a rapture on the lonely shore, ^595 , 

There is society where none intrudes. 
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar: 
I love not Man the less, but Nature more, ' 

From these our interview's, in which I steal 
From all I may be or have been before, 1600 

To mingle with the Universe, and feel 
What I can ne'er express, yet can not all conceal. 

CLXXIX. 

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean, roll! 
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain; 
Man marks the earth with ruin, his control 1605 
Stops with the shore; upon the watery plain 
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain 
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own. 
When for a moment, like a drop of rain, 
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, 16 10 
Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown. 



CHILDE HAROLD 61 

CLXXX. 

His steps are not upon thy paths, thy fields 
Arc not a spoil for him, — thou dost arise 
And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields 
For earth's destruction thou dost all despise, 1615 
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, 
And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray 
And howling, to his Gods, where haply lies 
His petty hope in some near port or bay, 16 19 

And dashest him again to earth: — there let him lay. 

CLXXXI. 

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls 
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake 
And monarchs tremble in their capitals. 
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make 
Their clay creator the vain title take 1625 

Of lord of thee and arbiter of war, — 
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake. 
They melt into thy yeast of waves, w^hich mar 
Alike the Armada's pride cr spoils of Trafalgar, 1629 

CLXXXII. 

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee — 
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they? 
Thy waters washed them power while they were free, 
And many a tyrant since; their shores obey 
The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay 
Has dried up realms to deserts: — not so thou, 1635 
Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' ]3lay; 
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure ])row; 
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou roHcst now. 



62 CHILDE HAROLD 

CLXXXIII. 

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form 
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time, 1640 

Calm or convulsed — in breeze, or gale, or storm. 
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime 
Dark-heaving; — boundless, endless, and sublime — 
The image of Eternity — the throne 
Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime 1645 

The monsters of the deep are made; each zone 
Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone. 

CLXXXIV. 

And I have loved thee. Ocean! and my joy 
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be 
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward. From a boy 
I w^anton'd with thy breakers — they to me 165 1 

Were a delight; and if the freshening sea 
]^»iade them a terror — 'twas a pleasing fear, 
For I was as it were a child of thee, 
And trusted to thy billows far and near, 1655 

And laid my hand upon thy mane — as I do here. 

CLXXXV. 

My task is done — my song hath ceased — my theme 
Has died into an echo; it is fit 
The spell should break of this protracted dream. 
The torch shall be extinguished which hath lit 1660 
My midnight lamp — and what is WTit, is writ, — 
Would it were w^orthier! but I am not now 
That which I have been — and my visions flit 
Less palpably before me — and the glow 1665 

Which in my spirit dv/elt is buttering; faint, and low. 



CHILDE HAROLD 63 

CLXXXVI. 

Farewell! a word that must be, and hath been — 
A sound which makes us linger; — yet — fare well f 
Ye, who have traced the Pilgrim to the scene 
Which is his last, if in your memories dwell 
A thought which once was his, if on ye swell 1670 
A single recollection, not in vain 
He wore his sandal-shoon and scallop-shell; 
Farewell! with him alone may rest the pain, 
If such there were — with you, the moral of his strain! 



THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 



Eternal Spirit of the chainless Mind! 

Brightest in dungeons, Liberty! thou art, 

For there thy habitation is the heart — 
The heart which love of thee alone can bind; 
And when thy sons to fetters are consigned — 

To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom, 

Their country conquers with their martyrdom, 
And Freedom's fame finds wings on every wind. 
Chillon! thy prison is a holy place. 

And thy sad floor an altar — for 'twas trod, 
Until his very steps have left a trace 

Worn, as if thy cold pavement were a sod, 
Ey Bonnivard! — May none these marks efface! 

For they appeal from tyranny to God. 



^ly hair is gray, but not with years, 
Nor grew it white 
In a single night, 
As men's have grown from sudden fears. 
My limbs are bowed, though not with toil. 

But rusted with a vile repose, 
Por they have been a dungeon's spoil. 

And mine has been the fate of those 
To whom the goodly earth and air 
Are banned, and barred — forbidden fare; 
Eut this was for my father's faith 
I suffered chains and courted death; 
That father perished at the stake 
For tenets he would not forsake; 



64 



THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 65 

And for the same his lineal race 15 

In darkness found a dwelling-place; 
We were seven — who now are one, 

Six in youth, and one in age, 
Finished as they had begun, 

Proud of Persecution's, rage; 20 

One in fire, and two in field. 
Their belief with blood have sealed: 
Dying as their father died. 
For the God their foes denied; — 
Three were in a dungeon cast, 25 

Of whom this wreck is left the last. 

II. 

There are seven pillars of Gothic mould 

In Chillon's dungeons deep and old, ^ 

There are seven columns massy and gray, 

Dim with a dull imprisoned ray, 30 

A sunbeam which hath lost its way, 

And through the crevice and the cleft 

Of the thick wall is fallen and left: 

Creeping o'er the floor so damp, 

Like a marsh's meteor lamp: 35 

And in each pillar there is a ring. 

And in each ring there is a chain; 
That iron is a cankering thing. 

For in these limbs its teeth remain, 
With marks that will not wear away 40 

Till I have done with this new day, 
Which now is painful to these eyes. 
Which have not seen the sun to rise 
For years — 1 cannot count them o'er, 



66 THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 

I lost their long and heavy score 45 

When my last brother drooped and died 
And I lay living by his side. 

III. 

They chained us each to a column stone, 

And we were three — yet, each alone; 

We could not move a single pace, 50 

We could not see each other's face, 

But with that pale and livid light 

That made us strangers in our sight: 

And thus together — yet apart. 

Fettered in hand, but joined in heart; 55 

'Twas still some solace, in the dearth 

Of the pure elements of earth, 

To hearken to each other's speech, 

And each turn comforter to each 

With some new hope or legend old, 60 

Or song heroically bold; 

But even these at length grew cold. 

Our voices took a dreary tone, 

An echo of the dungeon stone, 
A grating sound — not full and free 
As they of yore were wont to be; 65 

- It might be fancy — but to me 

They never sounded like our own. 

IV. 

I was the eldest of the three, 

And to uphold and cheer the rest 70 

I ought to do — and did my best — 

And each did well in his degree. 



THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 67 

The youngest, whom my father loved, 
Because our mother's brow was given 
To him — with eyes as blue as heaven, 75 

For him my soul was sorely moved: 
And truly might it be distressed 
To see such bird in such a nest; 
For he was beautiful as day — 

(When day was beautiful to me 80 

As to young eagles being free) — 

A polar day, which will not see 
A sunset till its summer's gone. 

Its sleepless summer of long light, 
The snow-clad offspring of the sun: 85 

And thus he was as pure and bright, 
And in his natural spirit gay, 
With tears for naught but others' ills. 
And then they flowed like mountain rills, 
Unless he could assuage the woe 90 

Which he abhorred to view below. 

V. 

The other was as pure of mind, 

But formed to combat with his kind; 

Strong in his frame, and of a mood 

Which 'gainst the world in war had stood, 95 

And perished in the foremost rank 

With joy: — but not in chains to pine: 
His spirit withered with their clank, 

I saw it silently decline — 

And so perchance in sooth did mine: 100 

But yet I forced it on to cheer 
Those relics of a home so dear. 



68 THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 

He was a hunter of the hills, 

Had followed there the deer and wolf; 

To him this dungeon was a gulf, 105 

And fettered feet the worst of ills. 

VI. 

Lake Leman lies by Chillon's walls, 
A thousand feet in depth below 
Its massy waters meet and flow; 
Thus much the fathom-line was sent no 

From Chillon's snow^-white battlement, 

Which round about the wave inthralls: 
A double dungeon wall and wave 
Have made — and like a living grave. 
Below the surface of the lake 115 

The dark vault lies wherein we lay, 
We heard it ripple night and day; 

Sounding o'er our heads it knocked 
And I have felt the winter's spray 
Wash through the bars when winds were high 120 
And wanton in the happy sky; 

And then the very rock hath rocked, 

And I have felt it shake, unshocked. 
Because I could have smiled to see 
The death that would have set me free. 125 

VII. 

I said my nearer brother pined, 

I said his mighty heart declined; 

He loathed and put away his food; 

It was not that 'twas course and rude, 

For we were used to hunter's fare, 130 



THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 69 

And for the like had little care: 

The milk drawn from the mountain goat 

Was changed for water from the moat, 

Our bread w^as such as captive's tears 

Have moistened many a thousand years, 135 

Since man first pent his fellow men 

Like brutes within an iron den; 

But what were these to us or him,? 

These wasted not his heart or limb; 

My brother's soul was of that mould 140 

Which in a palace had grown cold. 

Had his free breathing been denied 

The range of the steep mountain side 

But why delay the truth? — he died. 

I saw and could not hold his head, 145 

Nor reach his dying hand — nor dead, — 

Though hard I strove, but strove in vain, 

To rend and gnash my bonds in twain. 

He died, and they unlocked his chain. 

And scooped for him a shallow grave 150 

Even from the cold earth of our cave. 

I begged them, as a boon, to lay 

His corse in dust whereon the day 

Might shine — it was a foolish thought, 

But then within my brain it wrought, 155 

That even in death his freeborn breast 

In such a dungeon could not rest. 

I might have spared my idle prayer — 

They coldly laughed and — laid him there: 

The flat and turfless earth above 160 

The being we so much did love; 

His empty chain above it leant. 

Such murder's fitting monument! 



70 THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 

VIII. 

But he, the favourite and the flower, 

Most cherished since his natal hour, 165 

His mother's image in fair face, 

The infant love of all his race. 

His martyred father's dearest thought. 

My latest care, for whom I sought 

To hoard my life, that his might be 170 

Less wretched now, and one day free; 

He, too, who yet had held untired 

A spirit natural or inspired — 

He, too, was struck, and day by day 

Was withered on the stalk away. 175 

Oh, God! it is a fearful thing 

To see the human soul take wing 

In any shape, in any mood: — 

I've seen it rushing forth in blood, 

I've seen it on the breaking ocean 180 

Strive with a swoln convulsive motion, 

I've seen the sick and ghastly bed 

Of Sin delirious with its dread: 

But these were horrors — this was woe 

Unmixed with such — but sure and slow; 185 

He faded, and so calm and meek. 

So softly worn, so sweetly weak, 

So tearless, yet so tender — kind. 

And grieved for those he left behind; 

With all the while a cheek whose bloom 190 

Was as a mockery of the tomb. 

Whose tints as gently sunk away 

As a departing rainbow's rav — 

An eye of most transparent light, 

That almost made the dungeon bright, 195 



THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 71 

And not a word of murmur — not 

A groan o'er his untimely lot, — 

A little talk of better days, 

A little hope my own to raise. 

For I was sunk in silence — lost 200 

In this last loss, of all the most; 

And then the sighs he would suppress 

Of fainting nature's feebleness. 

More slowly drawn, grew less and less: 

I listened, but I could not hear — 205 

I called, for I was wild with fear; 

I knew 'twas hopeless, but my dread 

Would not be thus admonished; 

I called, and thought I heard a sound — 

I burst my chain with one strong bound, 210 

And rushed to him: — I found him not, 

/ only stirred in this black spot, 

/ only lived — / only drew 

The accursed breath of dungeon-dew; 

The last — the sole — the dearest link 215 

Between me and the eternal brink, 

Which bound me to my failing race. 

Was broken in this fatal place. 

One on the earth, and one beneath — 

My brothers — both had ceased to breathe; 220 

I took that hand which lay so still, 

Alas' my ow^n was full as chill; 

1 had not strength to stir, or strive, 

But felt that I was still alive — 

A frantic feeling, when we know 225 

That what we love shall ne'er be so. 

I know not why 

I could not die, 



72 THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 

I had no earthly hope — but faith, 

And that forbade a selfish death. 230 

IX. 

What next befell me then and there 
I know not well — I never knew — 

First came the loss of light and air, 
And then of darkness too: 

I had no thought, no feeling — none — 235 

Among the stones I stood a stone, 

And was, scarce conscious what I wist, 

As shrubless crags within the mist; 

For all was blank, and bleak, and gray, 

It was not night — it was not day, 240 

It was not even the dungeon-light, 

So hateful to my heavy sight. 

But vacancy absorbing space, 

And fixedness — without a place; 

There w^ere no stars — no earth — no time — 245 

No check — no change — no good — no crime — 

But silence, and a stirless breath 

Which neither was of life nor death; 

A sea of stagnant idleness. 

Blind, boundless, mute, and motionless! 250 



A light broke in upon my brain, — 
It was the carol of a bird; 

It ceased, and then it came again, 
The sweetest song ear ever heard, 

And mine was thankful till my eyes 

Ran over with the glad surprise. 



THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 73 

And they that moment could not see 
I was the mate of misery; 

But then by dull degrees came back 
My senses to their wonted track, 260 

I saw the dungeon walls and floor 
Close slowly round me as before, 
I saw the glimmer of the sun 
Creeping as it before had done. 
But through the crevice where it came 265 

That bird was perched, as fond and tame, 

And tamer than upon the tree; 
A lovely bird with azure wings. 
And song that said a thousand things. 

And seemed to say them all for me! 270 

I never saw its like before, 
I ne'er shall see its likeness more: 
It seemed like me to want- a matej 
But was not half so desolate. 
And it was come to love me when 275 

None lived to love me so again, 
And cheering from my dungeon's brink, 
Had brought me back to feel and think. 
I know not if it late were free. 

Or broke its cage to perch on mine, 280 

But knowing well captivity. 

Sweet bird! I could not wish for thine! 
Or if it were, in winged guise, 
A visitant from Paradise; 

For — Heaven forgive that thought! the while 285 
Which made me both to weep and smile; 
I sometimes deemed that it might be 
My brother's soul come down to me; 
But then at last away it flew. 



74 THE PRISONER OF CHILLOX 

And then 'twas mortal — well I knew, 290 

For he would never thus have flown, 
And left me twice so doubly lone, — 
Lone — as the corse within its shroud, 
Lone — as a solitan- cloud, 

A single cloud on a sunny day, 295 

WTiile all the rest of heaven is clear, 
A frown upon the atmosphere, 
That hath no business to appear 

WTien skies are blue, and earth is gay. 

XI. 

A kind of change came in my fate, 300 

My keepers grew compassionate; 

I know not what had made them so, 

They. were inured to sights of woe, 

But so it was: — my broken chain 

With links imfastened did remain, 305 

And it was liberty to stride 

Along my cell from side to side, 

And up and down, and then athwart. 

And tread it over every part; 

And round the pillars one by one, 310 

Returning where my walk begun. 

Avoiding only, as I trod. 

My brothers' graves without a sod; 

For if I thought ^vith heedless tread 

My step profaned their lowly bed, 315 

My breath came gaspingly and thick, 

And mv crushed heart fell blind and sick. 



THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 75 

XII. 

I made a footing in the wall, 

It was not therefrom to escape, 
For I had buried one and all 320 

Who loved me in a human shape; 
And the whole earth w^ould henceforth be 
A wider prison unto me: 
No child — no sire — no kin had I, 
No partner in my misery; 325 

I thought of this, and I was glad, 
For thought of them had made me mad; 
But I was curious to ascend 
To my barred windows, and to bend 
Once more, upon the mountains high, 330 

The quiet of a loving eye. 

XIII. 

I saw them — and they were the same. 

They were not changed like me in frame; 

I saw their thousand years of snow 

On high — their wide long lake below^ 335 

And the blue Rhone in fullest flow; 

I heard the torrents leap and gush 

O'er channelled rock and broken bush; 

I saw the white-walled distant town. 

And whiter sails go skimming down; 340 

And then there was a little isle. 

Which in my very face did smile, 

The only one in view; 
A small green isle it seemed no more, 
Scarce broader than my dungeon floor, 345 

But in it there were three tall trees. 
And o'er it blew the mountain breeze, 



76 THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 

And by it there were waters flowing, 

And on it there were young flowers growing, 

Of gentle breath and hue. 350 

The fish swam by the castle wall. 
And they seemed joyous each and all; | 

The eagle rode the rising blast, 
Methought he never flew so fast 
As then to me he seemed to fly, 355 

And then new tears came in my eye, 
And I felt troubled — and would fain 
I had not left my recent chain; 
And when I did descend again. 
The darkness of my dim abode 360 

Fell on me as a heavy load; 
It was as is a new-dug grave, 
Closing o'er one we sought to save, — 
And yet my glance, too much oppressed, 
Had almost need of such a rest. 365 

XIV. 

It might be months, or years, or days, 

I kept no count — I took no note, 
I had no hope my eyes to raise. 

And clear them of their dreary mote; 
At last men came to set me free, 370 

I asked not why, and recked not where. 
It was at length the same to me, 
Fettered or fetterless to be, 

I learned to love despair. 
And thus when they appeared at last, 375 

And all my bonds aside were cast, 
These heavy walls to me had grown 
A hermitage — and all my ownl 



THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 77 

And half I felt as they were come 

To tear me from a second home: 380 

With spiders I had friendship made, 

And watched them in their sullen trade, 

Had seen the mice by moonlight play. 

And why should I feel less than they? 

We were all inmates of one place, 385 

And I, the monarch of each race. 

Had power to kill — yet, strange to tell! 

In quiet we had learned to dwell — 

My very chains and I grew friends, 

So much a long communion tends 390 

To make us what we are: — even I 

Regained my freedom with a sigh. 



MAZEPPA 



'TwAS after dread Pultowa's day, 

When fortune left the royal Swede, 
Around a slaughter' d army lay. 

No more to combat and to bleed. 
The power and glory of the war. 

Faithless as their vain votaries, men, 
Had pass'd to the triumphant Czar, 

And Moscow's walls were safe again. 
Until a day more dark and drear. 
And a more memorable year, lo 

Should give to slaughter and to shame 
A mightier host and haughtier name; 
A greater wreck, a deeper fall, 
A shock to one — a thunderbolt to all. 

II. 

Such was the hazard of the die; 15 

The wounded Charles was taught to fly 

By day and night through field and flood, 

Stain'd with his own and subjects' blood; 

For thousands fell that flight to aid: 

And not a voice was heard t' upbraid 20 

Ambition in his humbled hour. 

When truth had naught to dread from power. 

His horse was slain, and Gieta gave 

78 



MAZEPPA 79 

His own — and died the Russians' slave. 

This too sinks after many a league 25 

Of well-sustain'd, but vain fatigue; 

And in the depth of forests darkling, 

The watch-fires in the distance sparkling — 

The beacons of surrounding foes — 
A king must lay his limbs at length. 30 

Are these the laurels and repose 
For which the nations strain their strength ? 

They laid him by a savage tree, 
In outworn nature's agony; 

His wounds were stiff — his limbs were stark — 35 
The heavy hour was chill and dark; 
The fever in his blood forbade 
A transient slumber's fitful aid: 
And thus it was; but yet through all, 
Kinglike the monarch bore his fall, 40 

And made, in this extreme of ill, 
His pangs the vassals of his will: 
All silent and subdued were they. 
As once the nations round him lay. 

III. 

A band of chiefs! — alas! how few, 45 

Since but the fleeting of a day 

Had thinn'd it; but this wreck was true 

And chivalrous: upon the clay 
Each sate him down, all sad and mute. 

Beside his monarch and his steed, 50 

For danger levels man and brute, 

And all are fellows in their need. 
Among the rest, Mazeppa made 
His pillow in an old oak's shade — 



80 MAZEPPA 

Himself as rough, and scarce less old, 55 

The Ukraine's hetman, calm and bold. 

But first, outspent with his long course, 

The Cossack prince rubb'd down his horse, 

And made for him a leafy bed. 

And smoothed his fetlocks and his mane. 
And slacked his girth, and stripped his rein, 

And joy'd to see how well he fed; 

For until now he had the dread 

His wearied courser might refuse 

To browse beneath the midnight dews: 65 

But he w^as hardy as his lord. 

And little cared for bed and board; 

But spirited and docile too; 

Whatever was to be done, would do. 

Shaggy and swift, and strong of limb, 70 

All Tartar-like he carried him; 

Obeyed his voice, and came to call. 

And knew him in the midst of all: 

Though thousands were around, — and Night, 

Without a star, pursued her flight, — 75 

That steed from sunset until dawn 
' His chief would follow like a fawn. 

IV. 

This done, Mazeppa spread his cloak. 

And laid his lance beneath his oak, 

Felt if his arms in order good 80 

The long day's march had well withstood — 

If still the powder fill'd the pan, 

And flints unloosened kept their lock — 
His sabre's hilt and scabbard felt. 
And whether they had chafed his belt — 85 



55 

I 



MAZEPPA 81 

And next the venerable man, 
From out his haversack and can, 

Prepared and spread his slender stock; 
And to the monarch and his men 
The whole or portion offer'd then 90 

With far less of inquietude 
Than courtiers at a banquet would. 
And Charles of this his slender share 
With smiles partook a moment there, 
To force of cheer a greater show, 95 

And seem above both wounds and woe; — 
And then he said — ^^Of all our band, 
Though firm of heart and strong of hand. 
In skirmish, march, or forage, none 
Can less have said or more have done 100 

Than thee, Mazeppa! On the earth 
So fit a pair had never birth. 
Since Alexander's days till now, 
As thy Bucephalus and thou: 
All Scythia's fame to thine should yield 105 

For pricking on o'er flood and field." 
Mazeppa answered — ^'111 betide 
The school wherein I learned to ridel" 
Quoth Charles — ^^Old Hetman, wherefore so, 
Since thou hast learn'd the art so well?" no 

Mazeppa said — '^Twere long to tell; 
And we have many a league to go. 
With every now and then a blow, 
And ten to one at least the foe. 
Before our steeds may graze at ease 115 

Beyond the swift Borysthenes; 
And, sire, your limbs have need of rest, 
And I will be the sentinel 



82 MAZEPPA 

Of this your troop." — ^^But I request," 

Said Sweden's monarch, ''thou wilt tell 120 

This tale of thine, and I may reap. 

Perchance, from this the boon of sleep; 

For at this moment from my eyes 

The hope of present slumber flies." 

^'Well, sire, with such a hope, I'll track 125 

My seventy years of memory back: 

I think 'twas in my twentieth spring, — 

Ay, 'twas, — when Casimir was king — 

John Casimir, — I was his page 

Six summers, in my earlier age. 130 

A learned monarch, faith! was he, 

And most unlike your majesty: 

He made no wars and did not gain 

New realms to lose them back again; 

And (save debates in Warsaw's diet) 135 

He reign'd in most unseemly quiet; 

Not that he had no cares to vex. 

He loved the muses and the sex; 

And sometimes these so froward are. 

They made him wish himself at war; 140 

But soon his wrath being o'er, he took 

Another mistress, or new book. 

And then he gave prodigious fetes — 

All Warsaw gather' d round his gates 

To gaze upon his splendid court, 145 

And dames, and chiefs, of princely port: 

He was the Polish Solomon, 

So sung his poets, all but one. 

Who, being unpension'd, made a satire, 

And boasted that he could not flatter. 150 



I 



MAZEPPA 83 

It was a court of jousts and mimes, 

Where every courtier tried at rhymes; 

Even I for once produced some verses, 

And sign'd my odes ^Despairing Thyrsis.' 

There was a certain Palatine, 155 

A count of far and high descent. 
Rich as a salt or silver mine; 
And he was proud, ye may divine, 

As if from heaven he had been sent. 
He had such wealth in blood and ore 160 

As few could match beneath the throne; 
And he would gaze upon his store, 
And o'er his pedigree would pore, 
Until by some confusion led, 
Which almost looked like want of head, 165 

He thought their merits were his own. 
His wife was not of his opinion — 

His junior she by thirty years — 
Grew daily tired of his dominion; 

And, after wishes, hopes, and fears, 170 

To virtue a few farewxU tears, 
A restless dream or two, some glances 
At Warsaw's youth, some songs, and dances, 
Awaited but the usual chances, 
(Those happy accidents which render 175 

The coldest dames so very tender,) 
To deck her Count with titles given, 
'Tis said, as passports into heaven; 
But strange to say, they rarely boast 
Of these, who have deserved them most. 180 



84 MAZEPPA 

V. 
'*I was a goodly stripling then; 

At seventy years I so may say, j 

That there were few, or boys or men, IH 

Who, in my dawning time of day, 
Of vassal or of knight's degree, 185 

Could vie in vanities with me; 
For I had strength, youth, gaiety, ' 
A port, not like to this ye see. 
But as smooth as all is rugged now; 

For time, and care, and war, have plough 'd 
My very soul from out my brow; 

And thus I should be disavow'd 
By all my kind and kin, could they 
Compare my day and yesterday. 
This change was wrought, too, long ere age 
Had ta'en my features for his page: 
With years, ye know, have not declined 
My strength, my courage, or my mind, 
Or at this hour I should not be 
Telling old tales beneath a tree, 200 

With starless skies my canopy. 
But let me on: Theresa's form — 
Methinks it glides before me now, 
Between me and yon chestnut's bough, 
The memory is so quick and warm; 205 

And yet I find no words to tell 
The shape of her I loved so well. 
She had the Asiatic eye. 

Such as our Turkish neighbourhood, 

Hath mingled with our Polish blood, 210 

Dark as above us is the sky; 
But through it stole a tender light, 



J 



MAZEPPA 85 

Like the first moonrise of midnight; 

Large, dark, and swimming in the stream. 

Which seem'd to melt to its own beam; 215 

All love, half languor, and half fire, 

Like saints that at the stake expire. 

And lift their raptured looks on high 

As though it were a joy to die; — 

A brow like a midsummer lake, 220 

Transparent with the sun therein, 
When waves no murmur dare to make. 

And heaven beholds her face within; 
A cheek and lip — but why proceed? 

I loved her then — I love her still; 225 

And such as I am, love indeed 

In fierce extremes — in good and ill; 
But still we love even in our rage, 
And haunted to our very age 
With the vain shadow of the past, 
As is Mazeppa to the last. 230 

VI. 

^*We met — we gazed — I saw, and sigh'd, 

She did not speak, and yet replied: 

There are ten thousand tones and signs 

We hear and see, but none defines — 235 

Involuntary sparks of thought. 

Which strike from out the heart o'erwrought 

And form a strange intelligence 

Alike mysterious and intense. 

Which link the burning chain that binds, 240 

Without their will, young hearts and minds: 

Conveying, as the electric wire, 

We know not how, the absorbing fire. — 



86 MAZEPPA 

I saw, and sigh'd — in silence wept, 

And still reluctant distance kept, 245 

Until I w^as made known to her, 

And we might then and there confer 

Without suspicion — then, even then, 

I long'd, and was resolved to speak; 

But on my lips they died again, • 250 

The accents tremulous and weak. 

Until one hour. — There is a game, 

A frivolous and foolish play. 

Wherewith we while away the day; 
It is — I have forgot the name — 255 

And w^e to this, it seems, were set, 
By some strange chance, which I forget: 
I reck'd not if I won or lost. 

It was enough for me to be 

So near to hear, and oh! to see 260 

The being whom I loved the most. 
I watch'd her as a sentinel, 
(May ours this dark night watch as well!) 

Until I saw^, and thus it was. 
That she was pensive, nor perceived 265 

Her occupation, nor w^as grieved 
Nor glad to lose or gain; but still 
Play'd on for hours, as if her will 
Yet bound her to the place, though not 
That hers might be the winning lot. 2 70 

Then through my brain the thought did pass 
Even as a flash of lightning there. 
That there w^as something in her air 
Which would not doom me to despair; 
And on the thought my words broke forth, 275 

All incoherent as they were — 



'4 



MAZEPPA 87 

Their eloquence was little worth, 
But yet she listen' d — 'tis enough — ■ 

Who listens once will listen twice; 

Her heart, be sure, is not of ice, 280 

And one refusal no rebuff. 

VII. 

^^I loved, and was beloved again — 

They tell me, sire, you never knew 

Those gentle frailties; if 'tis true, 
I shorten all my joy or pain; 285 

To you 'twould seem absurd as vain; 
But all men are not born to reign. 
Or o'er their passions, or as you 
Thus o'er themselves and nations too. 
I am — or rather was — a prince, 290 

A chief of thousands, and could lead 

Them on where each would foremost bleed; 
But could not o'er myself evince 
The like control. — But to resume: 

I loved, and was beloved again; 295 

In sooth, it is a happy doom. 

But yet where happiest ends in pain. — 
We met in secret, and the hour 
Which led me to that lady's bowser 
Was fiery Expectation's dower. 300 

My days and nights were nothing — all 
Except that hour which doth recall 
In the long lapse from youth to age 

No other like itself — I'd give 

The Ukraine back again to live 305 

It o'er once more — and be a page. 
The happy page, who was the lord 



88 MAZEPPA 

Of one soft heart and his own sword, 

And had no other gem nor wealth 

Save nature's gift of youth and health. — 310 

We met in secret — doubly sweet, 

Some say, they find it so to meet; 

I know not that — I would have given 

My life but to have call'd her mine 
In the full view of earth and heaven; 315 

For I did oft and long repine 
That we could only meet by stealth. 



VIII. 



4 



"For lovers there are many eyes, 

And such there were on us; — the devil 

On such occasions should be civil — 320 

The devil! — Fm loth to do him wrong. 

It might be some untoward saint. 
Who would not be at rest too long 

But to his pious bile gave vent — 
But one fair night, some lurking spies 325 

Surprised and seized us both. 
The Count was something more than wroth — 

I was unarmed; but if in steel, 
All cap a-pie from head to heel. 
What 'gainst their numbers could I do? — 330 
'Twas near his castle, far away 

From city or from succour near, 
And almost on the break of day; 
I did not think to see another. 

My moments seem'd reduced to few; 335 

And with one prayer to Mary Mother, 

And, it may be, a saint or two. 
As I resigned me to my fate, 



MAZEPPA 89 

They led me to the castle gate: 

Theresa's doom I never knew, 340 

Our lot was henceforth separate — 

An angry man, ye may opine. 

Was he, the proud Count Palatine; 

And he had good reason to be. 

But he was most enraged lest such 345 

An accident should chance to touch 

Upon his future pedigree; 

Nor less amazed, that such a blot 

His noble 'scutcheon should have got, 

While he was highest of his line; 350 

Because unto himself he seem'd 
The first of men, nor less he deem'd 

In others' eyes, and most in mine. 

^Sdeath! with a page — perchance a king 

Had reconciled him to the thing; 355 

But with a stripling of a page — 

I felt — but cannot paint his rage. 

IX. 

*^ ^Bring forth the horse!' — the horse was brought; 

In truth, he was a noble steed, 

A Tartar of the Ukraine breed, 360 

Who look'd as though the speed of thought 
Were in his limbs; but he was wild. 

Wild as the wild deer, and untaught, 
With spur and bridle undefiled — 

'Twas but a day he had been caught; 
And snorting, with erected mane, 365 

And struggling fiercely, but in vain, 
In the full foam of wrath and dread 
To me the desert-born was led. 



90 MAZEPPA 

They bound me on, that menial throng, 370 

Upon his back with many a thong; 
They loosed him with a sudden lash — 
Away! — away! — and on we dashl — 
Torrents less rapid and less rash. 



'Away! — away! — My breath was gone — 375 

I saw not where he hurried on: 

'Twas scarcely yet the break of day. 

And on he foam'd — away! — away! — 

The last of human sounds which rose, 

As I was darted from my foes, 380 

Was the wild shout of savage laughter, 

Which on the wind came roaring after 

A moment from that rabble rout: 

With sudden wrath I wrench'd my head. 

And snapp'd the cord, which to the mane 385 
Had bound my neck in lieu of rein, i 

And writhing half my form about, } 

Howl'd back my curse; but 'midst the tread, j 

The thunder of my courser's speed, 

Perchance they did not hear nor heed: 390 

It vexes me — for I would fain 

Have paid their insult back again. 

I paid it well in after days: 

There is not of that castle gate. 

Its drawbridge and portcullis' weight, 395 

Stone, bar, moat, bridge, or barrier left; 

Nor of its fields a blade of grass. 
Save what grows on a ridge of wall. 
Where stood the hearth-stone of the hall; 

And many a time ye there might pass, 400 



MAZEPPA 91 

Nor dream that e'er that fortress was: 

I saw its turrets in a blaze, 

Their crackling battlements all cleft, 

And the hot lead pour down like rain 
From off the scorch'd and blackening roof, 405 
Whose thickness was not vengeance-proof. 

They little thought that day of pain. 
When launch'd, as on the lightning's flash 
They bade me to destruction dash. 

That one day I should come again, 410 

With twice five thousand horse, to thank 

The Count for his uncourteous ride. 
They play'd me then a bitter prank. 

When, with the wild horse for my guide 
They bound me to his foaming flank: 415 

At length I play'd them one as frank — 
For time at last sets all things even — 

And if we do but watch the hour. 

There never yet was human power 
Which could evade, if unforgiven, 420 

The patient search and vigil long 
Of him who treasures up a wrong. 

XI. 

*^ Away, away, my steed and I, 
Upon the pinions of the wind. 

All human dwellings left behind; 425 

We sped like meteors through the sky. 
When with its crackling sound the night 
Is chequer'd with the northern light. 
Town — village — none were on our track, 

But a wild plain of far extent, 430 

And bounded by a forest black 



92 MAZEPPA 

And, save the scarce seen battlement 
On distant heights of some strong hold, 
Against the Tartars built of old, 
No trace of man: the year before 435 

A Turkish army had marched o'er; 
And where the Spahi's hoof hath trod. 
The verdure flies the bloody sod. 
The sky was dull, and dim, and gray. 

And a low breeze crept moaning by — 440" 

I could have answer'd with a sigh — 
Eut fast we fled, away, away — 
And I could neither sigh nor pray; 
And my cold sweat-drops fell like rain 
Upon the courser's bristling mane; 445 

Eut, snorting still with rage and fear. 
He flew upon his far career. 
At times I almost thought, indeed, 
He must have slacken'd in his speed; 
But no — my bound and slender frame 450 

Was nothing to his angry might. 
And merely like a spur became: 
Each motion which I made to free 
My swoln limbs from their agony 

Increased his fury and affright: 455 

I tried my voice, — 'twas faint and low, 
But yet he swerved as from a blow; 
And, starting to each accent, sprang 
As from a sudden trumpet's clang. 
Meantime my cords were wet with gore, 460 

Which, oozing through my limbs, ran o'er; 
And in my tongue the thirst became 
A something fierier far than flame. 



MAZEPPA 93 

XII. 

**We near'd the wild wood — 'twas so wide, 

I saw no bounds on either side; 465 

'Twas studded with old sturdy trees, 

That bent not to the roughest breeze 

Which howls down from Siberia's waste 

And strips the forest in its hast-e, — 

But these were few and far between, 470 

Set thick with shrubs more young and green, 

Luxuriant with their annual leaves. 

Ere strown by those autumnal eves 

That nip the forest's foliage dead. 
Discoloured with a lifeless red, 475 

Which stands thereon like stiffened gore 
Upon the slain when battle's o'er. 
And some long winter's night hath shed 
Its frost o'er every tombless head, 
So cold, and stark the raven's beak 480 

May peck unpierced each frozen cheek. 
'Twas a wild w^aste of underwood. 
And here and there a chestnut stood, 
The strong oak, and the hardy pine; 

But far apart — and well it were, 485 

Or else a different lot were mine — 

The boughs gave way, and did not tear 
My limbs; and I found strength to bear 
My wounds already scarr'd with cold — 
My bonds forbade to loose my hold. 490 

We rustled through the leaves like wind, 
Left shrubs, and trees, and wolves behind; 
By night I heard them on the track, 
Their troop came hard upon our back, 
With their long gallop whicn can tire 495 



94 MAZEPPA 

The hound's deep hate and hunter's fire: 
Where'er we flew they follow'd on, 
Nor left us with the morning sun; 
Behind I saw them, scarce a rood, 
At day-break winding through the wood, 500 

And through the night had heard their feet 
Their steaHng, rustling, step repeat. 
Oh! how I wished for spear or sword. 
At Least to die amidst the horde, 
And perish — if it must be so — 505 

At bay, destroying many a foe. 
, When first my courser's race begun, 
I wish'd the goal already won; 
But now^ I doubted strength and speed. 
Vain doubt! his swift and savage breed 510 

Had nerved him like the mountain-roe; 
Nor faster falls the blinding snow 
Which whelms the peasant near the door 
Whose threshold he shall cross no more, 
Bewilder'd with the dazzling blast. 
Than through the forest-paths he past — 
i Uutired, untamed, and w^orse than wild; 

All furious as a favour' d child 
Balk'd of its wish; or fiercer still — 
A woman piqued — who has her will. 520 

XIII. 

^*The wood was past; 'twas more than noon, 

But chill the air although in June; 

Or it might be my veins ran cold — 

Prolong'd endurance tames the bold; 

And I was then not what I seem, 525 

But headlong as a wintry stream, 



MAZEPPA 95 

And wore my feelings out before 

I well could count their causes o'er. 

And what with fury, fear, and wrath, 

The tortures which beset my path, 530 

Cold, hunger, sorrow, shame, distress, 

Thus bound in nature^s nakedness, 

(Sprung from a race whose rising blood 

When stirr'd beyond its calmer mood. 

And trodden hard upon, is like 535 

The rattle-snake's in act to strike,) 

What marvel if this worn-out trunk 

Beneath its w^oes a moment sunk? 

The earth gave way, the skies roll'd round, 

I seem'd to sink upon the ground; 540 

But erred, for I was fastly bound. 

My heart turn'd sick, my brain grew sore. 

And throbb'd awhile, then beat no more: 

The skies spun like a mighty w^heel; 

I saw the trees like drunkards reel, 545 

And a slight flash sprang o'er my eyes, 

Which saw no farther: he who dies 

Can die no more than then I died. 

O'ertortured by that ghastly ride, 

I felt the blackness come and go, 550 

And strove to wake; but could not make 
My senses climb up from below: 
I felt as on a plank at sea. 
When all the waves that dash o'er thee, 
At the same time upheave and whelm, 555 

And hurl thee towards a desert realm. 
My undulating life was as 
The fancied lights that flitting pass 
Our shut eyes in deep midnight, when 



96 MAZEPPA 

Fever begins upon the brain; 560] 

But soon it pass'd, with h'ttle pain, 
But a confusion worse than such: 
I ow^n that I should deem it much, 

Dying, to feel the same again; 

And yet I do suppose we must 565 

Feel far more ere we turn to dust: 

No matter; I have bared my brow^ 

Full in Death's face — before — and now. 

XIV. 

** My thoughts came back; where was I? Cold, 

And numb, and giddy: pulse by pulse 570 

Life reassumed its lingering hold, 
And throb by throb: till grown a pang 
Which for a moment would convulse. 

My blood reflow'd though thick and chill; 
My ear with uncouth noises rang, 575 

My heart began once more to thrill; 
My sight returned, though dim, alas! 
And thicken'd, as it were, with glass. 
Methought the dash of waves was high: 
There was a gleam too of the sky, 580 

Studded with stars; — it is no dream; 
The wild horse swims the wilder stream! 
The bright broad river's gushing tide 
Sweeps, winding onward, far and wide, 
And w^e are half-way, struggling o'er 585 

To yon unknown and silent shore. 
The waters broke my hollow trance. 

And with a temporary strength 

My stiffen 'd limbs were rebaptized. 
My courser's broad breast proudly braves 590 



MAZEPPA . 97 

And dashes off the ascending waves, 
And onward we advance! 

We reach the slippery shore at length 
A haven I but little prized, 
For all behind was dark and drear, 595: 

And all before was night and fear. 
How many hours of night or day 
In those suspended pangs I lay, 
I could not tell; I scarcely knew 
If this were human breath I drew. 600 

XV. 

" With glossy skin, and dripping mane, 

And reeling limbs, and reeking flank, 
The wild steed's sinewy nerves still strain 

Up the repelling bank. 
We gain the top: a boundless plain ,605 

Spreads through the shadow of the night, 

And onward, onward, onward, seems, 

Like precipices in our dreams, 
To stretch beyond the sight; 
And here and there a speck of white, 610 

Or scattered spot of dusky green, 
In masses broke into the light, 
As rose the moon upon my right. 

But nought distinctly seen 
In the dim waste would indicate 615 

The omen of a cottage gate ; 
No twinkling taper from afar 
Stood like a hospitable star; 
Not even an ignis-fatuus rose 
To make him merry with my woes: 620 

That very cheat had cheer'd me then! 



1 



98 MAZEPPA 

Although detected, welcome still, 
Reminding me, through every ill, 
Of the abodes of men. 



XVI. 

^' Onward we went — but slack and slow; 625 

His savage force at length overspent, 
The drooping courser, faint and low, 

All feebly foaming went. 
A sickly infant had had power 
To guide him forward in that hour; 

But useless all to me. 
His new-l)om tameness nought avaiPd — 
My limbs were bound; my force had faiPd, 

Perchance, had they oeen free. 
With feeble effort still I tried 
To rend the bonds so starkly tied — 

But still it was in vain;- 
My limbs were only wrung the more, 
And soon the idle strife gave o'er, 

Which but prolong'd their pain. 640 

The dizzy race seem'd almost done, 
Although no goal was nearly won: 
Some streaks announced the coming sun — 

How slow, alas! he came! 
Methought that mist of dawning gray 645 

Would never dapple into day; 
How heavily it roU'd away — 

Before the eastern flame 
Rose crimson, and deposed the stars. 
And called the radiance from their cars, 650 

And fiird the earth, from his deep throne, 
With lonely lustre, all his own. 



MAZEPPA 99 

XVII. 

^'Up rose the sun; the mists were curPd 

Back from the soHtary world 

Which lay around — behind — before; 655 

What booted it to traverse o'er 

Plain, forest, river? Man nor brute, 

Nor dint of hoof, nor print of foot, 

Lay in the wild luxuriant soil; 

No sign of travel — none of toil; 660 

The very air was mute; 

And not an insect's shrill small horn, 

Nor matin bird's new voice was borne 

From herb nor thicket. Many a werst. 

Panting as if his heart would burst, 665 

The weary brute still stagger'd on; 

And still we were — or seem'd — alone. 

At length, while reeling on our way, 

Methought I heard a courser neigh 

From out yon tuft of blackening firs. 670 

Is it the wind those branches stirs? 

No, no! from out the forest prance 

A trampling troop; I see them come! 
In one vast squadron they advance! 

I strove to cry — my lips were dumb. 675 

The steeds rush on in plunging pride; 
But where are they the reins to guide? 
A thousand horse — and none to ride! 
With flowing tail, and flying mane, 
Wide nostrils — never stretch'd by pain, 680 

Mouths bloodless to the bit or rein, 
And feet that iron never shod. 
And flanks unscarr'd by spur or rod, 
A thousand horse, the wild, the free, 



100 MAZEPPA 

Like waves that follow o'er the sea, 

Came thickly thundering on, 685 

As if our faint approach to meet. 
The sight re-nerved my courser's feet, 
A moment staggering, feebly fleet, 
A moment, with a faint low neigh. 

He answer'd, and then fell; 
With gasps and glazing eyes he lay, 

And reeking limbs immoveable; 
His first and last career is done! 
On came the troop — they saw him stoop, 695 

They saw me strangely boimd along 

His back with many a bloody thong: 
They stop — they start — they snujBE the air, 
Gallop a moment here and there, 
Approach, retire, wheel round and roimd, 
Then plunging back \^ith sudden bound. 
Headed by one black mighty steed 
Who seem'd the patriarch of his breed, 

Without a single speck or hair 
Of white upon his shagg}^ hide. 705 

They snort — they foam — neigh — swerve aside. 
And backward to the forest fly, 
By instinct, from a human eye. — 

They left me there to my despair, 
Link'd to the dead and stiffening wretch, 710 ' 

Whose lifeless limbs beneath me stretch. 
Relieved from that unwonted weight, 
From whence I could not extricate 
Nor him nor me — and there we lay 

The dying on the dead! ;i5^ 

I little deem'd another day 

Would see my houseless, helpless head. 



MAZEPPA 101 

*/And there from morn till twilight bound, 

I felt the heavy hours toil round, 

With just enough of life to see 720 

My last of suns go down on me, 

In hopeless certainty of mind. 

That makes us feel at length resigned 

To that which our foreboding years 

Presents the last and worst of fears 725 

Inevitable — even a boon, 

Nor more unkind for coming soon; 

Yet shunn'd and dreaded with such care, 

As if it only were a snare 

That prudence might escape: 730 

At times both wish'd for and implored. 
At times sought with self-pointed sword, 
Yet still a dark and hideous close 
To even intolerable woes, 

And welcome in no shape. 735 

And, strange to say, the sons of pleasure, 
They who revell'd beyond measure 
In beauty, wassail, wine, and treasure. 
Die calm, or calmer oft than he 
Whose heritage was misery: 740 

For he who hath in turn run through 
All that was beautiful and new. 

Hath nought to hope; and nought to leave; 
And, save the future, (which is viewed 
Not quite as men are base or good, 745 

But as their nerves may be endued,) 

With nought perhaps to grieve: — 
The wretch still hopes his woes must end, 
And Death, whom he should deem his friend. 
Appears, to his distempered eyes, 750 



102 MAZEPPA 

Arrived to rob him of his prize, 

The tree of his new Paradise. 

To-morrow would have given him all, 

Repaid his pangs, repair'd his fall; 

To-morrow would have been the first 755 

Of days no more deplored or curst. 

But bright, and long, and beckoning years. 

Seen dazzling through the mist of tears. 

Guerdon of many a painful hour; 

To-morrow would have given him power v 760 

To rule, to shine, to smight, to save — 

Anji must it dawn upon his grave? 



XVIII. 



^^ The sun was sinking — still I lay 

Chain'd to the chill and stiffening steed; 
I thought to mingle there our clay; 765 

And my dimb eyes of death had need. 

No hope arose of being freed. 
I cast my last looks up the sky. 

And there between me and the sun 
I saw the expecting raven fly, 770 

Who scarce w^ould wait till both should die 

Ere his repast begun. 
He flew, and perch'd, then flew once more, 
And each time nearer than before; 
I saw his wing through twilight flit, 775 

And once so near me he alit 

I could have smote, but lack'd the strength; 
But the slight motion of my hand. 
And feeble scratching of the sand. 
The exerted throat's faint struggling noise, 780 
Which scarcely could be call'd a voice. 



1 



MAZEPPA 103 

Together scared him off at length. — 
I know no more — my latest dream 

Is something of a lovely star 

Which fix'd my dull eyes from afar, 785 

And went and came with wandering beam, 
And of the cold, dull, swimming, dense 
Sensation of recurring sense. 

And then subsiding back to death. 

And then again a little breath, 790 

A little thrill, a short suspense, 

An icy sickness curdling o'er 
My heart, and sparks that cross'd my brain — 
A gasp, a throb, a start of pain, 

A sigh, and nothing more. 795 

XIX. 

^^ I woke — Where was I ? — Do I see 

A human face look down on me ? 

And doth a roof above me close ? 

Do these limbs on a couch repose? 

Is this a chamber where I lie? 800 

And is it mortal, yon bright eye 

That watches me with gentle glance? 

I closed my own again once more, 
As doubtful that the former trance 

Could not as yet be o'er. 805 

A slender girl, long-hair'd, and tall, 
Sate watching by the cottage wall: 
The sparkle of her eye I caught. 
Even with my first return of thought; 
For ever and anon she threw 810 

A prying, pitying glance on me 

With her black eyes so wild and free. 



104 MAZEPPA 

I gazed, and gazed, until I knew 

No vision it could be, — 
But that I lived, and was released 815 

From adding to the \ailture's feast. 
And when the Cossack maid beheld 
My hea\y eyes at length unseal'd, 
She smiled — and I essay'd to speak, 

But fail'd — and she approach' d, and made 8 20 

With lip and finger signs that said, 
I must not strive as yet to break 
The silence, till my strength should be 
Enough to leave my accents free; 
And then her hand on mine she laid, 825 

And smooth'd the pillow for my head, 
And stole along on tiptoe tread, 

.And gently oped the door, and spake 
In whispers — ne'er was voice so sweet I 
Even music follow'd her light feet; — 830 

But those she call'd were not awake. 
And she went forth; but ere she pass'd, 
Another look on me she cast. 

Another sign she made, to say. 
That I had naught to fear, that all 835 

Were near at my command or call. 

And she would not delay 
Her due return; — while she was gone, 
Methought I felt too much alone. 

XX 

' ^ She came with mother and with sire — 840 

What need of more? — I will not tire 

With long recital of the rest, 

Since I became the Cossack's oruest. 



MAZEPPA 105 

They found me senseless on the plain — 

They bore me to the nearest hut — 845 

They brought me into life again — 
Me — one day o'er their realm to reign! 

Thus the vain fool who strove to glut 
His rage, refining on my pain, 

Sent me forth to the wilderness, 850 

Bound, naked, bleeding, and alone. 
To pass the desert to a throne, — 

What mortal his own doom may guess? — 

Let none despond, let none despair! 
To-morrow the Borysthenes 855 

May see our coursers graze at ease 
Upon his Turkish bank, — and never 
Had I such welcome for a river 

As I shall yield when safely there. 
Comrades, good night!" — The Hetman threw 

His length beneath the oak-tree shade, 861 

With leafy couch already made, 
A bed nor comfortless nor new 
To hi-m who took his rest whene'er 
The hour arrived, no matter where: 865 

His eyes the hastening slumbers steep. 
And if ye marvel Charles forgot 
To thank his ta\e, he wonder'd not, — 

The king had been an hour asleep. 



ON THIS DAY I COMPLETE MY 
THIRTY-SIXTH YEAR 

'Tis time this heart should be unmoved, 

Since others it hath ceased to move: 
Yet, though I cannot be beloved, 
Still let me love! 

My days are in the yellow leaf; 

The flowers and fruits of .love are gone; 
The worm, the canker, and the grief 
Are mine alone! 

The fire that on my bosom preys 

Is lone as some volcanic isle; 

No torch is kindled at its blaze — 

A funeral pile. 

The hope, the fear, the jealous care. 

The exalted portion of the pain 
And power of love I cannot share, 
But wear the chain. 

But 'tis not thus — and 'tis not here — 

Such thoughts should shake my soul, nor noWy 
Where glory decks the hero's bier, 
Or binds his brow. 

106 



* 



I COMPLETE MY THIRTY-SIXTH YEAR 107 

The sword, the banner, and the field, 
Glory and Greece, around me see! 
The Spartan, borne upon his shield, 
Was not more free. 

Awake! (not Greece — she is awake!) 

Awake, my spirit! Think through whom 
Thy life-blood tracks its parent lake, 
And then strike home! 

Tread those reviving passions down, 

Unworthy manhood — unto thee 
Indifferent should the smile or frown 
Of beauty be. 

If thou regret'st thy youth, why live 

The land of honorable death 
Is here; — up to the field, and give 
Away thy breath! 

Seek out — less often sought than found — 

A soldier's grave, for thee the best; 
Then look around, and choose thy ground^ 
And take thy rest. 



I 



NOTES 



CHILDE HAROLD, CANTO FOURTH. 

The Fourth and last Canto of Childe Harold was begun June 26, 
18 1 7, and finished in first draft, twenty-four days later. Alterations 
were made and stanzas added from time to time until its publica- 
tion in April, 18 18. The first two cantos of the poem had been 
written in 1809-10, when Byron was abroad; and these, in describ- 
ing the adventures of an imaginary hero (Childe Harold), had given 
Byron the opportunity to record the effect upon his mind of the 
picturesque scenes of his travels in the Mediterranean and the famous 
events with which these scenes were associated. When, in 18 16, he 
left England, for the second and last time, he turned again to Childe 
Harold, and the Third Canto records his impressions on the Field 
of Waterloo, on the Rhine, and in Switzerland. This canto is more 
directly personal than the earlier ones, and gives expression to the 
tumult of emotions with which the embittered poet now faced a 
hostile world. Never before had Byron written with greater power 
or more complete mastery of his art. 

In the Fourth Canto Byron found a new field. In comparing it 
with the earlier cantos, he wrote, "it treats more of works of art 
than of nature. ... I have parted company with Shelley and Words- 
worth. Subject matter and treatment are alike new." Wordsworth's 
worship of nature had had a. manifest influence on the Third Canto; 
so too had the idealism of Shelley, who was Byron's companion in 
Switzerland. Now the scene is transferred to Italy, and Byron's 
companion, Hobhouse, to whom he dedicated the canto, aided in 
turning the poet's thought to art and history. The Fourth Canto, 
however, continues, like the Third, to give Byron's own personal 
impressions and feelings, with only a passing reference to the imagi- 
nary pilgrim, Childe Harold. It deals with Byron's impressions of 
Italy, and mingles its descriptions of famous works of art with out- 
pourings of his own pride and passion. It begins at Venice and 
then carries us to Arqua, Ferrara, Florence, Lake Thrasimene, Fo- 

109 



110 



NOTES 



I 



ligno, Terni, and on to Rome; and it describes the famous scenes, 
monuments and sculptures of these places. The poet, however, 
often makes an abrupt transition from the object described to the 
reflections it suggests to his own mind. 

The following outline of Canto IV. is from the complete edition of 
Childe Harold by Dr. Rolfe, w^ho credits the French editor of the 
poem, Dr. Darmesteter, with the original scheme. 

I.-XVIII. Venice. 

XIX.-XXIV. Imagination and Memory. 
XXV., XXVI. The Beauty of Italy even in Ruins. 
XXVII.-XXIX. An Italian Sunset. 
XXX.-XXXIV. Arqua and Petrarch. 
XXXV.-XXXIX. Ferrara and Tasso. 
XL., XLI. Ariosto. 

XLII., XLIII. Apostrophe to Italy (Filicaja's Sonnet). 
XLIV.-XLVII. Sulpicius and the Downfall of Rome. 
XLVIII. Florence. 
XLIX.-LIII. The Venus de' Medici. 
LIV.-LVI. Santa Croce and its Dead. 
LVII.-LIX. Dante and Boccaccio. 

LX. The Tombs of the Medici and the Graves of the Poets. 
LXI. Art and Nature. 
LXII.-LXV. Lake Thrasimene. 
LXVI.-LXVIII. Clitumnus and its Temple. 
LXIX.-LXXII. The Fall of Terni. 

LXXIII.-LXXVII. The Apennines; Soracte and Horace. 
LXXVIII.-LXXXII. Rome and her Ruins. 
LXXXIII.-LXXXVI. Sylla and Cromwell. 
LXXXVII. The Statue of Pompey. 
LXXXVIII. The Wolf of the Capitol. 
LXXXIX.-XCII. C^sar and Napoleon. 
XCIII.-XCVII. The Reaction of 1815. 
XCVIII. The Coming Triumph of Freedom. 
XCIX.-CV. The Tomb of Csecilia Metella. 
CVI.-CIX. The Ruins of the Palatine Hill. 
ex., CXI. The Columns of Phocas and of Trajan. 
CXII.-CXIV. The Capitol; the Forum; Rienzi. 
CXV.-CXIX. Egeria and her Fountain. 
CXX.-CXXVII. Love; its Ideals and its Realities. 
CXXVIII.-CXLV. The Coliseum; Byron's Imprecation and ! 
Forgiveness of his Enemies; the Dying Gladiator. 
CXLVL, CXLVII. The Pantheon. 
CXLVIII.-CLI. The Legend of the Roman Daughter. 



NOTES 111 

CLII. The Mausoleum of Hadrian. 

CLIII.-CLIX. St. Peter's. 

CLX. The Laocoon. 

CLXI.-CLXIII. The Apollo. Belvidere. 

CLXIV.-CLXVI. Childe Harold recalled. 

CLXVII.-CLXXII. The Death of the Princess Charlotte. 

CLXXIII.-CLXXVI. Lakes Nemi and Albano; the view from 
the Alban Mount. 

CLXXVII.-CLXXXIV. Apostrophe to the Ocean. 

CLXXXV., CLXXXVI. The End of the Song and the Poet's 
Farewell, 

I. I stood in Venice. On December 5, 18 16, Byron wrote to 
Thomas Moore, the English poet, "I have not yet sinned against 
it (Venice) in verse, nor do I mean to do so." In June, 181 7, how- 
ever, he began this canto of Childe Harold, and he did not sin in 
writing about Venice, for Canto Four contains some of Byron's best 
work. But we should remember Ruskin's words that the Venice of 
Byron is not the real Venice, but *'a thing of yesterday, a mere 
efflorescence of decay, a stage dream w^hich the first ray of daylight 
must dissipate into dust." {Stones of Venice, I. ii. 2.). 

Bridge of Sighs. A covered bridge leading from the Ducal 
Palace over a canal to the State Prison. Byron, ver}' naturally, 
conceived this bridge as emblematic of the despotic power of arbi- 
trary rulers. It is, says Ruskin, "the centre of the Byronic ideal of 
Venice." 

8. the winged Lion. The Lion of St. Mark on the top of a 
column in the Piazza di San Marco, standing guard over the chief 
square of Venice, is the emblem of Venice. 

9. hundred isles. Venice is built on 117 islands of various sizes. 

10. a sea Cybeie. Cybele was an earth-goddess of the Phrygians, 
but Byron, drawing his image from a Venetian historian, makes her 
a sea-goddess, and conceives her as rising, with a turreted crown, 
from the sea. 

19. Tasso*s echoes. Previous to the extinction of the Venetian 
Republic in 1797 the gondoliers of Venice would rival one another 
in capping stanzas from a corrupted form of Tasso's Jerusalem 
Delivered, a poem recounting the story of the first crusade. 

27. masque. A masquerade or carnival. 

31. dogeless. Doge, from the Italian diicem, a leader, was the 
name given to the chief magistrate of the ancient republic of Venice 
prior to 1797. 

33. Rialto. The famous bridge across the Grand Canal originally 
the centre of commerce and trade. 



112 NOTES 

33» 34« Shylock — The Moor — ^Pierre, Referring respectively to 
the characters in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, and Othello, and ■ 
in. Otway's Venice Preserved. 

47. The first from Hope. Ernest Hartley Coleridge makes thej 
following note, quoting first the lines from Don Juan, xiv: x: 

' ' In youth I wrote because my mind was full, 
And now because I feel it growing dull." 

*'In youth the poet takes refuge in the ideal world, from the crowd I 
and pressure of blissful possibilities; and in age, when hope is beyond 
hope, he peoples the solitude with beings of the mind." 

64. I*ve taught me other tongues. Though Byron learned toj 
speak Italian like a native, and later in life at times adopted the 
Greek national dress, he never forgot that he was an Englishman. 
Such an outburst of patriotism, however, is rare in his poetry. 

85. Spartan's epitaph. The mother of Brasidas, the Lacedae- 
monian general, so replied to the strangers who praised the memory 
of her son. 

91. The spouseless Adriatic. On each Ascension Day the Doge 
of Venice wedded the Adriatic to the city by casting a ring into the 
sea from the state galley, the Bucentaiir, thus indicating the suprem- 
acy of the Venetian Republic over the sea. After 1798, when the 
Republic became a part of Austria, the ancient custom was aban- 
doned. Read Wordsworth's "Sonnet on Venice." 

97. the proud Place, The Piazza di San Marco, where the Lion 
of St. Mark stood guard over the city. Here, in front of the 
Cathedral, the German Emperor, Frederic Barbarossa, called *'the 
Suabian," because he was of the house of Suabia, made submission 
in 1 1 77 to Alexander III. 

100. the Austrian reigns, Venice was taken from Austria, and 
was finally ceded to Italy in 1866 as a part of United Italy. 

106. lauwine. The German word for avalanche. 

107. Dandolo. Henry DandoJo, Doge of Venice from 1192 to 
1205, was the leader of the Venetians at the taking of Constantinople 
in 1204. He was ninety-seven years of age at the time. 

109. steeds of brass. The bronze horses of heroic size, now 
standing over the portal of St. Mark's in Venice, were brought from 
Constantinople by Dandolo. Originally they belonged to Rome, 
whence Constantine brought them to Constantinople. In 1797 
Napoleon took them to Paris to adorn the Arch of the Carrousel; 
but in 1815, after the battle of Waterloo, they were restored to Venice. 

Ill, Dorians menace. In 1397, when the Venetians were over- 
come by their commercial rivals, the Genoese, they sued for peace; 
stipulating, however, that they should keep their independence. 



NOTES 113 

In answer to this plea, the leader of the Genoese, Pietro Doria, is 
reputed to have said, "Ye shall have no' peace until v^e have first 
put a rein upon those unbridled horses of yours, which are upon the 
porch of your evangelist St. Mark." 

113. thirteen hundred years of freedom. "The foundation of 
Venice dates from the invasion of Italy by the Huns under Attila, 
A.D. 452, when many of the inhabitants of the neighboring districts 
took refuge in the islands in the lagoons." — TozaR. 

114-117. Sinks. The buildings of Venice rest on piles sunk into 
the sea. Apparently there must have been some fear that the settling 
of the buildings would ultimately lead to their being engulfed by 
the sea. 

118. Tyre. The first of the great maritime cities. 

120. The * Planter of the Lion.* "That is, the Lion of St. 
Mark, the standard of the Republic, which is the origin of the word 
Pantaloon, Piantaleone, Pantaleon, Pantaloon." — Byron. Byron's 
fanciful etymology — *pianta-leon,' 'planter of the lion,' the lion of 
St. Mark's being the emblem of the city, is more poetical than philo- 
logical. In all probability the word comes from St. Pantaleone, a 
patron saint of Venice, whose name signifies 'wholly lion.' The 
Venetians were dubbed ''Pantaloni " by other Italians. 

123. Europe's bulwark 'gainst the Ottomite. Venice, as the 
chief power between the East and the West, guarded Europe from 
the Ottoman Turks. Cf. Wordsworth's Sonnet, On the Extinction 
of the Venetian Republic : 

"Once did She hold the gorgeous East in fee, 
And was the safeguard of the West: the worth 
Of Venice did not fall below her birth, — 
Venice, the eldest child of Liberty. 

• She was a maiden city, bright and free; 
No guile seduced, no force could violate; 
And when she took unto herself a Mate, 
She must espouse the everlasting Sea. 
And what if she had seen those glories fade. 
Those titles vanish, and that strength decay: 
Yet shall some tribute of regret be paid 
When her long life hath reached its final day: 
Men are we, and must grieve when even the Shade 
Of that which once was great is passed away." 

124. Troy*s rival, Candia. Troy was besieged by the Greeks 
for ten years, but Candia, in Crete, was besieged by the Turks and 
defended by the Venetians for twenty-four years (1645-1669). 

125. Lepanto^s fight. Lepanto, near the Gulf of Corinth, Greece, 
was the scene of a decisive victory over the Turks, October 7, 15 71, 
by a league of Christians, among whom the Venetians were con- 
spicuous for their bravery. 



114 NOTES ; 

133. streets. Though the canals of Venice are the main high- 
ways of travel, there are many narrow streets in the city. 

foreign aspects. The Austrians. Byron is, of course, com- 
paring the departed gIor>' of Venice with the mock glory of the 
Austrian occupation. 

136. When Athens' armies fell at Syracuse. When the Athenians 
attempted to take Syracuse they were defeated, and many taken 
captives. Some of the captives redeemed themselves by singing 
verses from Euripides, whose dramas were popular in Sicily. 

141. overmastered victor. A figure of speech called an oxymoron, 
in which an epithet of quite an opposite significance is added to a 
word. 

142. scimitar. An anachronism — an error in point of time. 
145-149. Even if all else were forgotten, the memory of Tasso's 

songs, sung by the gondoliers, ought to have been a reminder of the 
proud past of Venice sufficient to save her from her humiliating 
slavery: — this is Byron's extravagant way of protesting against the 
Austrian rule. 

150. shameful to the nations. The nations that by the treaty 
of Paris, 18 14, had permitted Venice to fall back into the hands of 
Austria. 

153. thy watery wall. Cf. Richard 11, II. i. 46, where John of 
Gaunt describes England: 

"This precious stone set in the silver sea, 
Which serves it in the office of a wall, 
Or as a moat defensive to a house, 
Against the envy of less happier lands." 

158. Otway. Thomas Otway (1651-1685) was the author of the 
drama, Venice Preserved. 

Radcliffe. Mrs. Anne Radcliffe (i 764-1823) w^as the popular 
author of many thrilling romantic tales, chief among which was The 
Mysteries of Udolpho (1794). Byron admired her works and was 
indebted to her for many suggestions. See lines 3 and 4 in stanza i . 

Schiller. J. C. F. von Schiller (175 9-1805), the great German 
writer, was the author of Der Geisterseher (The Ghostseer), or the 
Armenia}!, the scene of which is laid at Venice. ''This (the Doge's 
palace) was the thing that most struck my imagination in Venice — 
more than the Rialto, which I visited for the sake of Shylock; more, 
too, than Schiller's Armenian, sl novel which took great hold of me 
when a boy." (Byron's note.) 

Shakespeare's art. His Othello and Merchant of Venice. 

172. tannen. Byron, w^ho admitted that he did not know Ger- 
man, evidently thought that tannen was a particular kind of fir tree, 
whereas the word is the plural of taiine — a fir tree, a general term. 



NOTES 115 

215. The cold, the changed, etc. Cf. Scott's Lady of the Lake, 

"Again his soul he interchanged 
With friends whose hearts were long estranged, 
They come in dim procession led, 
The cold, the faithless and the dead." 

Stanza XXV. In the spring of 181 7 Byron made a pilgrimage 
of the principal Italian cities, including Arqua, Ferrara, Florence, 
and Rome, noted for their historic, artistic, and literary interest. 

226. The commonwealth of kings. The Republic of Rome was, 
theoretically speaking, a government instituted and conducted by 
the people. Byron may have had in mind the story of the ambas- 
sador of Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, who, on returning from an unsuc- 
cessful mission to the Romans, told his master that the Roman 
senate was a ''Council of Kings." 

238. Friuli's mountains. The Alps northeast of Venice. Byron's 
view is, consequently, not directly toward the setting sun, but his 
description may be applied to the reflection made in that direction. 
Tozer makes the following interesting note: "The point of view is 
the mainland opposite Venice, where the river Brenta enters the sea. 
This is the nearest approach toward painting that can be found in 
the poem; but it avoids the faults of that mode of description — 
which is an encroachment on the painter's art, and attempt to do 
what painters can do better — by omitting detail, and by describing 
what is seen in succession of time, which the painter cannot do." 

240. Iris. The personification of the rainbow. 

242. Dian. Diana, goddess of the moon. Here the "meek Dian's 
crest" refers to "the pale crescent moon" as in contrast with the 
gorgeous colors of the sunset. "The above description," says Byron 
in a note, "may seem fantastical or exaggerated to those who have 
never seen an Oriental or an Italian sky; yet it is but a literal and 
hardly sufficient delineation of an August evening (the eighteenth), as 
contemplated in one of many rides along the banks of the Brenta, near 
La Mira." La Mira, on the Brenta, is abont six miles from where 
the river enters the lagoon opposite Venice. Byron spent the sum- 
mers of 18 1 7 and 18 1 9 here. The student may compare this passage 
with Shelley's description of a Venetian sunset which he saw while 
riding with Byron: Julian and Maddalo. 

247. Rhaetian hill. The Rhaetian Alps, northwest of Venice. 
This vast image is one of the subtle descriptions of which Byron was 
a master. 

259. Dies like the dolphin. The "coryphene" of the Mediter- 
ranean sea, which, when dying, is resplendant with colors. 

262. Arqua. Arqua del Monte, in the Eugancan Hills, twelve 



116 NOTES 

miles southwest of Padua, where Petrarch the Italian poet lived after 
being exiled from Florence, and where his tomb, a sarcophagus 
resting on pillars of red marble, stands in front of the village 
church. 

264. Laura's lover. Francis Petrarch (1304-13 74) was the 
greatest Italian lyric poet. Laura was a French woman of Avignon 
upon whom Petrarch bestowed his love and made her the theme of 
his sonnets. Petrarch, with Dante and Boccaccio, raised the Italian 
language to its highest literary fame. 

269. Watering the tree. Petrarch, who was fond of word play, 
often united the name of Laura with the laurel — the emblem of fame. 

298. demons. ''The struggle is full as likely to be with demons 
as with our better thoughts. Satan chose the wilderness for the 
temptation of our Savior. And our unsullied John Locke (an 
English philosopher) preferred the presence of a child to complete 
solitude." — Byron. 

307. Ferrara. A city south of Padua on the way to Florence, 
which was long ruled by the family of Este. 

314. those who wore. Ariosto and Tasso, the Italian poets who 
followed Dante and Petrarch. 

316. Tasso. Alfonse II of Este w^as at first the patron of Tasso, 
but later imprisoned the poet, according to the legend, because Tasso 
had loved the Duke's sister. 

339. Cruscan quire. The Academy della Crusca of Florence was 
a literary society, w^hose chief purpose was to winnow the Italian 
language — separating the chafl from the wheat. Byron refers to the 
society's condemning Tasso's Jerusalein Delivered. 

340. Boileau. An eighteenth century French critic who censured 
the taste of his time for preferring the tinsel of Tasso to the pure 
gold of Vergil. 

354. Bards of Hell and Chivalry. Dante and Ariosto. Dante's 
great poem. The Divine Comedy^ tells the story of Dante's ascent 
from Hell through Purgatory to Heaven. Ariosto's poem, Orlando 
FuriosOj recounts the events of an imaginary war between the Franks 
and the Spanish Muslems in the ninth century. Byron takes the 
opportunity to pay a compliment to Sir Walter Scott. 

361. The lightning rent from Ariosto's bust, etc. "Before the 
remains of Tasso were removed from the Benedictine church to the 
library of Ferrara, his bust, which surmounted the tomb, was struck 
by lightning and a crown of iron laurels melted away." — Hobhouse. 
Laurel was supposed to be protected from lightning. 

370. Italia. This stanza and the one following are, with few 
alterations, according to Byron, a translation from a patriotic sonnet 
by Filicaja, a seventeenth century Italian poet. 



NOTES 117 

388. Wandering in youth. Byron tells of these wanderings in 
Greece in Canto II of Childe Harold. 

389. Roman friend. "The celebrated letter of Servius Sulpicius 
to Cicero, on the death of his daughter, describes as it then was, and 
now is, a path which I often traced in Greece, both by sea and land, 
in different journeys and voyages: — 'On my return from Asia, as I 
was sailing from Algina towards Megara, I began to contemplate 
the prospect of the countries around me: Algina was behind, Megara 
before me; Piraeus on the right, Corinth on the left; all which towns, 
once famous and flourishng, now lie overturned and buried in their 
ruins. Upon this sight, I could not but think presently within my- 
self, Alas! how do we poor mortals fret and vex ourselves if any of 
our friends happen to die or be killed, whose life is yet so short, 
when the carcasses of so many noble cities lie here exposed before 
me in one view.' — See Middleton's Cicero^ 1823, vol. ii, p. 144." 
(Byron's Note.) 

425. Etrurian Athens. As Athens was once the home of the arts, 
so now is Florence on the Amo. 

432. buried Learning rose, etc. The Renaissance, or rebirth of 
literature and other fine arts, had its origin in the newly awakened 
interest in the ancient culture of Greece and Rome. This is often 
dated from the fall of Constantinople in 1453, which sent Greek 
scholars and manuscripts to Italy. The Renaissance reached -its 
height in Italy in the sixteenth century. 

433. the Goddess loves in stone. The Venus de Medici in the 
Uffizi gallery in Florence. 

450. Dardan Shepherd's prize. Paris, the son of Priam, King 
of Troy, who gave Venus the prize for beauty in preference to Juno 
or Minerva. 

452. Anchises. He was ''more deeply blest" because Venus 
appeared to him as his wife, the mother of his son ^Eneas. 

454. Lord of War. Mars, the Roman war-god, the lover of 
Venus. 

478. Santa Croce. A Florentine church built in 1294, con- 
taining, as Byron said, "much illustrious nothing," i.e., the remains 
of many great men. He also refers to it as the Westminster Abbey 
of Italy. 

484. Angelo's. Michael Angelo Buonarroti (1474-1563), one of 
Italy's greatest geniuses, great alike for his painting, sculpture and 
architecture. 

Alfieri. (i 749-1803.) Of him Byron says, "Alfieri is the great 
name of this age. His memory is the more dear to them 
because he is the bard of freedom; and because, as such, his tragedies 
can receive no countenance from any of their sovereigns." As a 



118 NOTES 

matter of truth, he ranks far below the other three. Between his 
life and Byron's are many similarities. 

485. starry Galileo. (15 64-1642.) The founder of modern 
astronomy and the inventor of the telescope. Because he declared 
the earth revolved about the sun he vi^as persecuted by the Inquisi- 
tion, hence "his woes." 

486. Machiavelli. A historical and political writer of the six- 
teenth century. 

487. elements. Fire, air, earth and water from which the ancient 
Greeks and Romans supposed all to have been made. 

495. Canova. A Venetian sculptor (died 1822) immensely pop- 
ular in his day. 

496. Etruscan three. Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio, **The 
Bard of Prose," were all of Tuscan birth. Dante "sleeps afar" at 
Ravenna, where he died in exile in 13 21, after the downfall of his 
party, the Whites, in Florence. Since Byron's day a beautiful ceno- 
taph has been erected to Dante's memory in Florence, but ail attempts 
to have his remains returned there have been in vain. 

498. The Bard of Prose. Boccaccio of Certaldo (1313-1375), was 
the author of the Decameron^ a gracefully united series of tales. 
Boccaccio satirized the monks and the abuses of the church so keenly 
that according to Byron, "The hyaena bigots tore up his tombstone 
and ejected it from the holy precincts." 

506. Scipio Africanus Major, dissatisfied with the treatment 
accorded him at Rome, went into voluntary exile at Litumum on 
the coast, where he died in 183 B.C. 

511. Petrarch's laureate brow. He was crowned with laurel at 
Rome in 1341 for his poem on Africa. 

525. Caesar's pageant. In the reign of Tiberius, in the year 22 
A.D., occurred the funeral of Junia, the wife of Cassius, and sister 
of Brutus. The images of these two historic men were omitted 
from the procession on account of the part they had played in the 
death of Julius Caesar. The remark of Tacitus, "They were con- 
spicuous by their absence," has become a common phrase. 

529. Arqua. In 1650 Petrarch's grave at Arqua was rifled by 
some Venetian robbers, who later were banished from the state for 
their act. 

532. pyramid. This refers to the splendid chapel in the church 
of San Lorenzo erected as a memorial to the Medici, the merchant 
dukes of Florence. 

542. Arno's dome of Art. Probably a reference to the Uffizi 
Gallery, one of the richest storehouses of art in the world. 

551. Thrasimene. In 218 B.C. Hannibal here, between the hills 
and the lake annihilated the Roman army under the Consul Fla- 



NOTES 119 

minius. Of this, Livy in Book XXII, Chapter 5, says, "such was 
the animosity on both sides that an earthquake which partly destroyed 
many ItaHan cities, turned rapid streams, poured back rivers from 
the sea, and even tore down mountains, failed to be felt by any of 
them." 

568. Note the figure in Stanza LXIV. Earth was the vessel bear- 
ing them unmindful of its motion, to eternity. After the picture of 
violence note the calm contrast of Stanza LXV. 

586. Clitumnus, a northern branch of the Tiber. Pliny has a 
beautiful description of it and there are Macaulay's familiar lines, 

"Unwatched along Clitumnus, 
Grazes the milk-white steer." 

On its shore, between Folignio and Spoleto, is a small but beautifully 
constructed temple of white marble. The whole scene is famous 
for its beauty. 

613. The roar of waters. This is the waterfall of Terni on the 
Velino, which flows into the Nar, itself a tributary of the Tiber. '* It 
is," says Byron, ''worth all the cascades and torrents of Switzerland 
put together." 

620. Phlegethon, from the Greek, ''the burning, boiling river of 
Hell." "The fall looks so much Hke 'the hell of waters' that Addison 
thought the descent alluded to by the gulf in which Alecto plunged 
into the Infernal regions." (Byron's Note.) 

640. Horribly beautiful. An oxymoron, or the placing of contra- 
dictory terms in juxtaposition. 

642. An Iris sits. "It is exactly like a rainbow come down to 
pay a visit, and so close that you may walk into it; this effect lasts 
till noon." (Byron's Note.) 

649. woody Apennine. This chain of mountains is an offshoot 
of the Maritime Alps, hence "infant" and "parents." 

653. lauwine. See line 106. Here wrongly used with a plural 
verb, the right form being Lauwinen. 

654. Jungfrau, or virgin, a lofty mountain in the Bernese Alps. 
In Byron's time it was really a virgin mountain, for its summit had 
never been touched by man, but since 181 2 its "never-trodden snow" 
has felt the feet of many mountain climbers. 

656. Mont Blanc, or White Mountain, so called from the snow 
and glaciers visible on its summits. It is in the Savoyard Alps and 
rises to a height of 15,782 feet. 

657. Chimari. Mountains on the sea coast of Epirus. Their 
ancient Greek name, Acroceraunian, means thunder peaks. 

662. Ida, Athos, Olympus, -^tna. Atlas. Consult an atlas or 
geographical gazetteer. For what is each of these mountains famous ? 



120 NOTES 

665. Soracte, now called San Oreste, is an isolated mountain 
north of Rome. Although only 2260 feet high, it is conspicuous 
from many points in the city. The sight of it brings back to Byron 
his schoolday struggles with the Latin poet Horace, who wrote of 
the Snow on Soracte, as a sign of a severe winter. "I wish to express 
that we become tired of the task before we can comprehend the 
beauty; that we learn by rote before we can get by heart; that 
the freshness is worn away, and the future pleasure and advantage 
deadened and destroyed, by the didactic anticipation, at an age 
when we can neither feel nor understand the power of compositions 
which it requires an acquaintance with life, as well as Latin and 
Greek, to relish, or to reason upon." (From Byron's Note.) 

695. The orphans of the heart. Why does Byron apply this 
title to himself? 

703. Niobe of nations. A queen of Grecian mythology, who 
through boasting of her twelve children, brought about their destruc- 
tion by a jealous goddess. So Rome has lost all her dependent states. 

707. Scipios* tomb. In 1780 the family tomb of the Scipios was 
discovered near the Appian Way. The bones were carried off, but 
its ancient inscriptions are now in the Vatican. 

715. up the steep. This is the carriage road up the Capitoline 
Hill, ascended by victorious generals in their triumphal cars. 

721-2. her, Night's daughter. These parenthetical words con- 
fuse the figure. In our efforts to trace the ancient monuments we 
are in a complete darkness, that has long wrapt and still wraps every- 
thing: a darkness due to the long neglect of the ages and to ignorance. 

728. Eureka.. The Greek for ''I have found it," cried by Archi- 
medes after suddenly solving the difBcult problem of testing the 
purity of the gold in Hiero's crown. 

Stanza LXXXII. This stanza recalls many events of ancient 
Rome: its 326 triumphs; Brutus, more famous than conquerors 
through the killing of Caesar; the voice of M. Tullius Cicero; the 
poet Vergil and the historian Livy — contemporaries both of Augus- 
tus Caesar. 

740. Sylla. Lucius Cornelius Sulla, called the Fortunate. Dur- 
ing his conquest of Asia Minor, he was declared the public enemy of 
Rome. On his return, in 79 B.C., he conquered his opponents and 
then laid down the dictatorship. 

758. Cromwell. Fine vigorous lines referring to Cromwell's dis- 
missal of the Long Parliament and his leadership in the execution of 
Charles I. in 1649. 

763. '' On the 3d of September (1650) Cromwell gained the victory 
of Dunbar; a year afterwards he obtained his 'crowning mercy' 
of Worcester; and a few years after (1658) on the same day, which 



NOTES 121 

he had ever esteemed the most fortunate for him, died." (Byron's 
Note.) 

775. dread statue. The statue of Pompey, possibly the one now 
at the Spada Palace at Rome. 

"E.ven at the base of Pompey 's statue, 
Which all the while ran blood, great Cagsar fell." 

Julius CcBsar, III, ii, 188. 

781. Nemesis, The goddess of punishment and retribution. 
Cf. Stanza CXXXII. 

784. nurse of Rome. The bronze "wolf of the Capitol" in the 
Place of the Conservatori at Rome, traditionally identified with the 
statue struck by lightning B.C. 65. Cf. Cicero's third Catiline ora- 
tion. Chap. VIII. 

795-797. Men of later times have fought and bled in imitation of 
Roman arms, *'the things they fear'd." 

800. one vain man. Napoleon, who was then at St. Helena. 

809. Alcides. When Cassar was in Egypt, B.C. 48, he became 
completely captivated by Cleopatra. In this he reminds Byron of 
Alcides (Hercules), who became the slave of Omphale, Queen of 
Lydia, and spun wool at her feet. 

811. came and saw and conquered! The famous ^'veni, vidi, 
vicij " Caesar's announcement of his success after the battle of Zela, 
B.C. 47. In As you Like It, V, ii, 25, Shakespeare refers to it as 
"Caesar's thrasonical brag." 

Stanzas XCII-XCVIII should be considered together. Here 
Byron moralizes on the conditions of the European nations under 
the tyrannical governments of his day. The climax is reached in 
Stanza XCVIII in a glorious tribute to liberty. It is easy to see how 
Byron with such a trumpet-call to freedom tremendously influenced 
and inspired the nations of the continent in their struggles for polit- 
ical freedom during the generation after the Napoleonic Wars. 

858. Columbia. The poetical and altogether fitting name for 
America, where it stands for independence and self-government. 

859. Pallas. Pallas Athena is fabled to have sprung fully armed 
from the brain of Zeus. 

865. France. Note the powerful and pitifully true figure opening 
this stanza. 

866. Saturnalia. A Roman feast in mid-December, noted for 
its license and debauchery. 

871. the base pageant. The Congress of Vienna, the Holy 
Alliance (for the protection of absolute monarchy) and the second 
treaty of Paris, were all in 1815. 

Stanza XCIX. In an abrupt change the poet takes us to the 



122 NOTES 



round tower and strong fortress, on the Appian Way, two miles 
beyond the walls of Rome. The fortress is known as the tomb of 
Caecelia Metella, the wife of Marcus Crassus, consul of Rome in 
55 B.C. 

904. Cornelia, ''The Mother of the Gracchi," and sister of 
Scipio. 

905, Egypt's graceful queen: Cleopatra. 

914. prophetic of the doom. Byron refers to ''Whom the Gods 
love die young." 

917. Hesperus. Evening star, prophetic of night. 

927. his love or pride! One of Byron's cynical touches so often 
apparent in his poems. Crassus was famous for his wealth. 

Stanzas CIV-CV. In these stanzas Byron takes the reader 
back again to himself and his own misguided life. 

951. Palatine. One of the seven hills of Rome. The poet's 
description is true of his day — but the hill now is largely excavated 
and discloses six palaces. 

963. Imperial Mount. Augustus Caesar lived here. 

Stanza CVIII. The course of evolution to greatness and decay 
was true of Rome, Athens and other ancient empires. 

969. Hath but one page, i.e.. History repeats itself. 

975. Thou pendulum. This line has become a classic metaphor. 

978. pyramid of empires . . . Glory's gewgaws. The Palatine 
Hill with its "golden roofs, studded with gems," stood as the very 
acme of supremacy, tyranny and outward splendor. 

983. nameless colunin. This very imposing column, standing 54 
feet high, in the Forum, is now known to be the pillar dedicated to 
Phocas, the tyrannical Emperor of Byzantium, 602-610 a.d. 

987. Titus. Arch of Titus, in memory of the fall of Jerusalem. 

Trajan. The ashes of Trajan were removed from his pillar by 
Pope Sistus V. and a statue of the Apostle Peter was placed on 
the column. In a similar manner, a statue of St. Paul was placed 
on the column of Marcus Aurelius. 

997. unstained with household blood, refers to Alexander's 
murder of his friend Clitus in a drunken quarrel. 

999. Trajan's name. "Trajan was proverbially the best of the 
Roman princes, and it would be easier to find a sovereign uniting 
exactly the opposite characteristics than one possessed of all the 
happy qualities ascribed to this Emperor." (Byron's Note.) 

1000. rock of triumph. Capitoline Hill, where the triumphal 
processions ended. 

1002. Tarpeian. The rock from which traitors were hurled. 
1007. Forum. There were several forums or market places in 
Rome. The one here referred to was at the foot of the Capitoline 



4 

ailes ^m\ 
h nf " 



I 




NOTES 123 



lill. It was the center of lity life and the scene of many factional 
struggles. 

1018. latest tribune. Rienzi, a private citizen, who led an insur- 
rection against the nobles. He was made Tribune in 1347 a.d. See 
Lytton's Rienzi, the Last of the Tribunes. 

1027. Egeria. The Nymph whom Numa, the ancient Roman 
law-giver, is fabled to have loved and who advised him in regard to 
his public conduct. 

103 1, nympholepsy. The sight of a nymph was supposed to 
fill the beholder with an ecstatic longing for an unattainable ideal. 

1036. thy fountain. This grotto of Egeria is a mile and a half 
from Rome, on the Appian Way. Here the nymph was supposed 
to meet her lover. 

1069. Expel the venom and not blunt the dart. *' Remove the 
poison of satiety without taking off the edge of enjoyment." Of 
tempered, Epicurean enjoyment Byron knew nothing. 

1 08 1. In the following stanzas (CXXI, CXXII, CXXIII) Byron 
indicates that like the artist's ideal, so the human ideal is never 
reached. Thinking we have found it, charm after charm unwinds 
like a robe and discloses our idolized object human and imperfect. 

1 105. Reaping the whirlwind. Hosea VIII, 7. ''They have 
sown the wind and they shall reap the whirlwind." 

1 109. unfound the boon. An absolute construction. This 
entire passage is intense and pessimistic because of its personal 
note. Byron refers to his own experiences and unhappy marriage. 

1 1 29. upas. A fabled tree supposed to exude a poison fatal 
to all vegetation and life near it. 

1 140. cabined. From Macbeth, III, iv, 24. 

"But now I am cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd, bound in 
To saucy doubts and fears." 

1 143. couch. A medical term for removing a cataract. 

Stanzas CXXVIII-CXXX. Reflections on the Coliseum and its 
application to himself. Enumerate the places where the poet sees 
in Nature, or history, illustrations of his own life. 

1 147. The Coliseum, between the Palatine and Esquiline Hills, 
was an immense amphitheater completed in 80 a.d. by the Flavian 
dynasty and used for gladiatorial and spectacular shows. 

Stanza CXXX. How does Byron think his wrongs can be adjust- 
ed? 

Stanzas CXXXI-CXXXVI. These are personal stanzas in 
which Byron alludes to the wrongs done him, as he thinks, by his 
wife and by the public which took her part. As often, his personal 
passion calls forth the full display of his masterly art. 



124 NOTES 

1 1 79. they. His enemies. 

1 184. Orestes was pursued by the Furies, because, to avenge the 
murder of his father, he had dared to murder his mother. 

1207. Stanza CXXXV. Between this and stanza CXXXVI., 
Byron in the MS. inserted the following: 

■"If to forgive be heaping coals of fire — 
As God hath spoken — on the heads of foes, 
Mine should be a volcano, and rise higher 
Than, o'er the Titans crushed, Olympus rose, 
Or Athos soars, or blazing Etna glows: — 
True, they who stung were creeping things; but what 
Than serpent's teeth inflicts with deadlier throes? 
The lion may be goaded by the gnat — 
Who seeks the slumberer's blood? The eagle? No, the bat." 

1 22 1. Janus. The God with two faces, who presided over the 
gates of war in Rome. 

1234. thou dread power. Is it Time or Nemesis or what? Cf. 
Stanzas CXXX-CXXXII. 

1250. listed spot. List, a place for games and tournaments. 

Stanza CXL. Though not faultless in meter and rhyme, this is 
one of Byron's noblest stanzas. Matthew Arnold speaks of it as 
showing Byron's "strong deep sense of what is beautiful in human 
action and suffering." 

1252. Gladiator. The statue, now called the "Dying Gaul," in 
the museum of the Capitol at Rome. 

1266. Dacian mother. Dacia, the land north of the lower Danube, 
was the last to be conquered by Rome, and its warlike captives were 
forced to fight in the Roman games. 

1274. Roman millionsVblame or praise. "When one gladiator 
wounded another, he shouted, 'He has it,' 'Hoc habet,' or 'Habet.' 
The wounded combatant dropped his weapon, and, advancing to 
the edge of the arena, supplicated the spectators. If he had fought 
well, the people saved him, if otherwise, or as they happened to be 
inclined, they turned down their thumbs, and he was slain." (Hob- 
house.) 

1276. My voice sounds much. A very effectual contrast to the 
roar of the buzzing nations. It has been estimated that the Colos- 
seum could seat 87,000 persons. 

1279. from its mass. The amphitheater was used as a quarry 
in the Middle Ages, and many Roman buildings were made from its 
spoils. 

1288. But when the rising moon. Another example of Byron's 
swift, spontaneous power in description. Ruskin says of him, 
"Byron wrote as easily as the hawk flies, and as clearly as the lake 



NOTES 125 

reflects, the exact truth in the precisely narrowest terms; not only 
the exact truth, but the most central and useful one." 

1293. Caesar's head. A poor, grating simile. ''Suetonius informs 
us that Julius Caesar was particularly gratified by that decree of the 
senate which enabled him to wear a wreath of laurel on all occasions. 
He was anxious, not to show that he was the conqueror of the world, 
but to hide that he was bald/* (Byron's Note.) For a similar 
description of the Coliseum, see Manfred, III, iv, 10 ff. 

1297. While stands the Coliseum. "This is quoted [from Bede] 
in [Gibbons's] Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, as a proof 
that the Coliseum was entire, when seen by the Anglo-Saxon pil- 
grims at the end of the seventh, or the beginning of the eighths 
century." (Byron's Note.) 

The original is: "Quamdiu stabit Coliseus, stabit et Roma; quan- 
do cadet Coliseus, cadet Roma; quando cadet Roma, cadet et 
mundus." 

Stanza CXLVI. Note the fine climax, not only in the first line^ 
but in the stanza as a whole. The Pantheon, erected in 27 B.C. by 
Agrippa, signifies a temple for all gods. It is a circular building, 
its sole aperture being the window in the top of its dome. In 610 
A.D. it was made a Christian Church under the name of Santa Maria 
Rotonda, and is to-day in a remarkable state of preservation. 

132 1, altars for their beads. Place for prayer. 

1323. honour'd forms. Refers to the busts of Raphael and 
other great men, which were placed there. 

Stanzas CXLVIII-CLI. Another of the best known passages in 
Childe Harold, where Byron invests a beautiful story with exquisite 
realism and fine feeling. The story, which is common to many 
countries, is here connected with a cell attached to the church of 
St. Nicolo in Carcere, called "Caritas Romana." It tells of a 
daughter, who to preserve the life of her imprisoned father, nour- 
ished him with her own milk. Festus and Pliny both tell the story. 

1336. Blest into mother. One of Byron's best phrases. He 
was passionately fond of children. 

1348. Great Nature's Nile. Nile, /'the Creator of Egypt," is 
the source of agricultural life in the country through which it flows. 

135 1. The starry fable of the milky way. The Greek myth of 
the origin of the milky way was that Hercules after his birth was put 
to the breast of the sleeping Hera (Juno), that he might drink of 
divinity. But on awaking she pushed him away and the milk thus 
spilled became the milky way. 

1360. Mole. The circular mausoleum built for Hadrian and 
later, in 428 a.d., made into a fortress. It is now called the castle 
of St. Angelo and is connected by a passage to the Vatican. 



126 NOTES 

1361. Imperial mimic. The structure resembles the pyramids in 
size and solidity only. 

1363. travelled phantasy. Hadrian had traveled widely. It is 
probable, however, that his successor and not he himself is respon- 
sible for this tomb. 

1369. dome. The cathedral of St. Peter's, on the left bank of 
the Tiber. Michael Angelo was one of its architects. A period of 
120 years was covered in its building. Explain how the poet makes 
us feel its vastness. 

1370. Diana's marvel. The temple of Diana, or Artemis, at 
Ephesus, one-half the size of St. PetCx-'s, was anciently considered 
one of the seven wonders of the world. 

1375' Sophia's bright roofs. The church of Santa Sophia in 
Constantinople was made into a mosque by the Turks. 

1 38 1. Zion's desolation. The temple of Jehovah at Jerusalem 
on Mt. Zion. It was destroyed in 70 a.d. by the Roman general, 
Titus. 

1386. ark. The ark of the covenant: the coffer containing the 
Jewish laws. 

1387. its^ grandeur overwhelms thee not. This is true, and is 
due to the perfect proportions, "musical immensities," and to the 
lack of anything to give scale. 

1433. Laocoon. This Trojan, because he sympathized with the 
Greeks and opposed the introduction of the horse into Troy, was 
destroyed with his two sons by serpents, sent by the avenging gods. 
The statue representing the story was dug up on the Esquiline Hill 
in 1506 and is now in the Vatican. The group expresses the very 
acme of physical and mental torture and is the basis of a treatise 
on art by Lessing. Lessing's work, Laocoon^ published in 1766, 
has now become more of a classic than the sculpture itself. 

The pupil will do well to compare this description with that of 
the gladiator, as illustrating Byron's peculiar power of visualizing 
phases of human life and feelings, 

144 1. Lord of the unerring bow. Apollo Bel videre. He was god 
of poetry and- song as well. as of the sun. The statue was discovered 
at the end of the fifteenth century at Antium. Its left hand, then 
missing, was restored by an artist of the school of Michael Angelo 
and was made to hold a bow. It is now believed that the hand 
originally held an aegis. 

1459. Prometheus stole from Heaven. According to one ver- 
sion, Prometheus, after fashioning men from clay, stole fire from 
Heaven and gave it to them as the breath of life. For this he was 
punished with terrible tortures. Byron here says the theft was 
repaid by the sculptor of the Apollo, who, aflame with genius, fash- 



NOTES ^ 127 

ioned the epitome of beauty, ''an eternal glory," beyond human 
thought. 

1460. The fire which we endure. Our higher nature the poet 
thinks is the source of all our pain. 

1468. Pilgrim of my song. Childe Harold, who has not been 
mentioned since Canto 3, Stanza LV. 

1495. from the abyss. Death. Stanzas CLXVII-CLXXII 
refer to the death of Princess Charlotte from childbirth in 181 7, the 
shock of which threw England into universal mourning. She was 
the only daughter of the Prince Regent, later George IV. She had 
married in 181 6, Leopold, subsequently King of Belgium. As the 
future Queen of England, as a great and beloved woman the British 
nation had looked forward to her reign as an era of prosperity. 
Southey, Campbell, Montgomery and several others wrote eulogies 
upon her death, but only Byron's has lived. 

1549. Nemi. Byron, now near to the end of his poem, takes the 
reader to the Alban Mountain, now called Monte Cavo, from which 
place he suggests the beautiful panorama which unrolls before the 
eye. First to the south is Nemi, a crater lake. 

"The lake of Nemi lies in a very deep bottom, so surrounded on all 
sides with mountains and groves that the surface of it is never ruffled 
with the least breath of wind, which, perhaps together with the clear- 
ness of the water, gave it formerly the name of Diana's Looking 
Glass, 'speculum que Dianae.'" (Byron's Note.) 

1558. Albano. Another, and larger crater lake, lying at the right 
of Nemi. 

1559. and afar. To the northwest. 

1561. Epic war. Vergil's Mneid, which describes the Epic war, 
begins, '^Arma virumque cano." 

1562. re-ascending star. The descendants of ^Eneid became 
rulers. 

1564. TuUy reposed. At Tusculum, Cicero's country estate. 

1566. Sabine Farm. The home of Horace the poet. 

1567. Pilgrim's shrine. Childe Harold has reached the end of his 
wanderings. 

1574. Cape's rock. Gibraltar. Byron must mean the last time 
he and Childe Harold saw it together, for he had seen it on his return 
to England in 181 1. 

1576. blue Symplegades. Two small rocky islands near the 
Euxine entrance to the Bosphorus. The name means "clasping 
islands," because at one time they were supposed to be floating. 

Stanza CLXXVII. The climax of his poem and of his poetic 
powers is now reached in the following sweeping inspiring stanzas. 

1620. there let him lay. A British provincialism and inexcus 



128 NOTES 

ably bad English, for which the poet has been roundly criticised. 
It is probably not a case of ignorance, but of "the careless and neg- 
ligent ease of a man of quality." 

Stanza CLXXXI. This is regarded by some critics as Byron's 
best stanza. Why? 

1629. Armada's pride. The Spanish Armada was destroyed in 
a tempest. 

spoils of Trafalgar. The vessels captured at Trafalgar were 
practically all destroyed by a storm following the battle. 

1648. my joy. Byron was an excellent swimmer and was very 
proud of his abiUty. He once swam across the Hellespont. 

1672. sandal-shoon and scallop-shell. Badges of a pilgrim. 
Shoon is plural for shoe. The scallop-shells are found in the Holy 
Land, and were marks of travel over the sea. 

THE PRISONER OF CHILLON. [Page 64.] 

The Prisoner of Chilion was written in Switzerland in 18 16. 
During a trip with Mr. Hobhouse, along the shore of the Lake 
Geneva, the poet was detained, by stress of weather, for two days 
(June 26, 27), at the little port town of Ouchy, and there wrote the 
poem; ^'thereby," as Moore says, 'adding one more deathless 
association to the already immortalized locality of the lake." 

"The chateau de Chilion is situated between Clarens and Ville- 
neuve, which last is at one (the east) extremity of the Lake of Geneva. 
On its left are the entrances of the Rhone, and opposite are the 
heights of Meillerie and the range of Alps above Boveret and St. 
Gingo. Near it, on a hill behind, is a torrent: below it, washing its 
walls, the lake has been fathomed to the depth of 800 feet, French 
measure; within are a range of dungeons, in which the early reform- 
ers and subsequently prisoners of state, were confined. Across one of 
the vaults is a beam black with age, on which we were informed that 
the condemned were formerly executed. In the cells are seven 
pillars, or rather eight, one being half merged in the wall; in some of 
these are rings for the fetters and the fettered : in the pavement the 
steps of Bonnivard have left their traces. He was confined here 
several years. . . . The chateau is large, and seen along the lake 
from a great distance. The walls are white." — Byron. 

Chilion covers an isolated rock on the edge of the lake, and is a 
picturesque combination of semicircular and square towers grouped 
about a higher central tower. It was probably built during the first 
quarter of the twelfth century and has served in turn as a fortress, 
a prison, and an arsenal, and is to-day one of the points of special 
interest to the tourists on the continent. 



NOTES 129 

Francois de Bonnivard, the Swiss patriot, politician, author, and 
prelate, was born at Seysse, near Geneva, 1496; died at Geneva, 
1570. In 15 18, he was instrumental in effecting an alliance between 
Geneva and other Swiss cities against the Duke of Savoy, for which 
he was imprisoned twenty months. On his release, however, he 
continued his efforts for Swiss freedom, and in 1530 was again 
arrested by the Duke, and confined in'Chillon, where he was placed 
in a subterranean dungeon, and, local tradition says, chained to a 
pillar. He was liberated (1536) at the capture of the castle by the 
Bernese forces, and lived to honored old age among the people in 
whose service he had suffered so greatly. As will be seen, there is 
little in commcn between the historical Bonnivard and the hero of 
the poem. Indeed, as Byron says: "When the foregoing poem 
{The Prisoner of Chillon) was composed, I was not sufficiently 
aware of the history of Bonnivard, or I should have endeavored 
to dignify the subject by an attempt to celebrate his courage and 
virtues." Merely a sight of the dungeon was sufficient to set the 
poet's powerful imagination to work. 

" The Prisoner of Chillon," says an eminent critic, ''brings before 
us in a few words the condition of a hopeless bondage. The account 
of the prisoner himself and of the lingering deaths of his brothers; 
the first frenzy of the survivor and the desolation which succeeds it; 
the bird's song breaking on the night of his solitude; his growing 
enamored of despair and regaining his freedom with a sigh, are all 
strokes of a master hand." 

The Sonnet on Chillon was written some time after the Pris- 
oner of Chillon, and after the poet had learned the story of Bonni- 
vard. In the first draught, the sonnet opened thus: 

"Beloved Goddess of the chainless mind! 

Brightest in dungeons, Liberty! thou art, 
Thy palace is within the Freeman's heart. 

Whose soul the love of thee alone can bind; 
And when thy sons to fetters are consigned — 

To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom, 
Thy joy is with them still, and unconfined, 

Their country conquers with their martyrdom." 

1-4. My hair is gray, etc. Byron has this note: ''Ludovic and 
others. The same is asserted of Marie Antoinette's the wife of 
Louis the Sixteenth, though not in quite so short a period. Grief 
is said to have the same effect: to such, and not to fear, this change 
in hers, was to be attributed. 

6. But rusted with a vile repose. Explain the use of the word 
rusted. In the original MS. the line read: 

" But with the inward waste of grief." 



130 NOTES 

II. But this was for my father's faith. Can you find any good 
reasons for believing the father was a Protestant ? The use of this, 
instead of it, illustrates the author's occasional slip in construction — 
probably due to his rapid composition. 

20. Proud of Persecution's rage. The MS. read: 

"Braving rai;icour-chains and rage." 

22. sealed. Confirmed, ratified. 

30. Dim with dull imprisoned ray. Murray, describing Chillon 
in his Handbook of Switzerland, says: "The dungeon of Bonnivard 
is airy and spacious, consisting of tv^^o aisles, almost like the crypt 
of a church. It is lighted by several windows, through which the 
sun's rays pass by reflection from the surface of the lake up to 
the roof, transmitting partly also the blue color of the water." 

41. new day. Explain. What do we now see is the situation 
at the opening of the poem ? 

44. I cannot count them o'er. Cite other instances in litera- 
ture where persons isolated have lost track of time. 

57. The pure elements. Light and air. 

63. Our voices took a dreary tone. A common experience to 
persons entombed or isolated. Cf. Enoch Arden, 11. 680-681. 

"Muttering and mumbling idiot-like it seem'd, 
With inarticulate rage." 

Also the Maroon in Treasure Island, whose voice sounded ''hoarse 
and awkward like a rusty lock." 

81. As to young eagles. Why eagles? 

97. But not in chains to pine. To pine depends on was formed, 

1. 93- 

loi. it. Antecedent? 

102. Those relics of a home. His two brothers. 

107. Lake Leman. (Lake Geneva). Lake Geneva, in Switzer- 
land, is one of the most beautiful lakes of Europe. It is forty-five 
miles long by eight and a half miles wide, and has an altitude of 
twelve hundred thirty feet. The Rhone traverses it from east to 
west. 

108. A thousand feet. In his note, Byron says, "800 feet, 
French measure." The French foot is nearly an inch longer than the 
English foot. 

III. snow white battlement. See Byron's description of the 
castle in the introductory notes to the poem. 

112. Which round about the wave enthralls. Wave is the 
subject of enthralls. The inverted order of construction used here 



NOTES 131 

is not uncommon in poetry. Cf. the oft-quoted example in Gray's 
Elegy: 

"Awaits alike the inevitable hour." 

Hour is the subject of awaits. 

126. nearer brother. That is, nearer in age. 
144. But why delay the truth?— he died. MS: 

"But why withhold the blow? — he died." 
148. gnash. Bite. The MS. read: 

"To bite or break my bonds in twain." 

152. boon. A favor: from the Latin bonus, good. 

154. it was a foolish thought. Explain the use of the word 
foolish; also of wrought, in the following line. 

172. Yet. Thus far, hitherto. 

182, 183. Vve seen the sick, etc. Cf. the death-bed scene of 
Count de Bceuf in Ivanhoe. 

189. And grieved for those he left behind. "There is much 
delicacy," says Hales, ''in this plural. By such a fanciful multi- 
plying of the survivors the elder brother prevents self-intrusion; 
himself and his loneliness are, as it were, kept out of sight and for- 
gotten." 

215-218. The last, the sole, the dearest link, etc. "The gentle 
decay and gradual extinction of the youngest life is," says Jeffrey, 
"the most tender and beautiful passage in the poem." 

230. selfish death. That is, a self-inflicted death; suicide. 

231-250. What next befell me then and there, etc. This descrip- 
tion of the prisoner's stupefaction, following his younger brother's 
death, is among the most admired and best known portions of the 
poem. 

252. It was the carol of a bird. Note the poet's device for 
calling the prisoner out of his spell to a consciousness of his sur- 
rounding — a device common in literature. Cf. the use of the iris- 
hued serpents to break the Ancient Mafiner's spell: 

"A spring of love gushed from my heart; 
And I blessed them unaware." 

The use of the ^'ord forlorn, in Keat's Oae to the Nightingale: 

... in faery lands forlorn. 
Forlorn! the very word is like a bell 

To toll me back from thee to my sole self," 

and the use of the chimes and choral song in Faust to stay the hero's 
hand as he lifts the cup of poison to his lips: 

"Sound on, ye hymns of heaven, so sweet and mild! 
My tears gush forth: The earth takes back her child." 



132 NOTES 

294. Lone as a solitary cloud. Cf. Wordsworth's poem, The 
Daffodils, beginning: 

"I wandered lonely as a cloud 
That floats on high o'er vales and hills." 

232-235. I saw them and they were the same. From the 
beginning of time the hills and mountains have been used as sym- 
bolic of permanence and strength. 

335-336. On high — their wide long lake below, etc. The original 

MS. read: 

"I saw them with their lake below, 
And their three thousand year of snow." 

For dimensions of the lake see note to line 107. 

336-337. And the blue Rhone, etc. See the poet's note in intro- 
duction to the poem. 

339. White walled, distant town. Villeneuve. 

341-350. And then there was a little isle, etc. In a note to 
this passage the poet says: "Between the entrance of the Rhone and 
Villeneuve, not far from Chillon, is a very small island; the only 
one I could perceive in my voyage round and over the lake, within 
its circumference. It contains a few trees (I think not above three) 
and from its singleness and diminutive size has a peculiar effect 
upon the view!" 

387. In quiet we had learned to dwell. Here follows in the MS.: 
"Nor slew I of my subjects one — 

What sovereign J"^^*^ ^^ ^^"J^^ ^ I done? " 
\ yet so much hath / 

392. Regained my freedom, etc. Sir Walter Scott, writing on 
the poem, says in part: "It will readily be allowed that this singular 
poem is more powerful than pleasing. The dungeon of Bonnivard 
is, like that of Vgilino, a subject too dismal for even the power of 
the painter or poet to counteract its horrors. It is the more disa- 
greeable as affording human hope no anchor to rest upon, and describ- 
ing the sufferer, though a man of talents and virtues, as altogether 
inert and powerless under his accumulated sufferings. Yet as a 
picture, however gloomy the coloring, it may rival any which Lord 
Byron has drawn; nor is it possible to read it without a sinking of 
the heart, corresponding with that which he describes the victim to 
have suffered." 



NOTES 133 



MAZEPPA. [Page 78.] 

Mazeppa was written in 18 19, at Venice. In it Byron returned 
to his earlier form of verse: the rapid narrative style of Scott. Per- 
haps nowhere in literature can one find greater action, or more 
graphic descriptions, than in the lines detailing the Hetman's head- 
long ride and the incidents attendant thereon. M. Villemain, the 
eminent French critic, declares that, sublime in its substance and 
finishing with a joke, it is at once the master-piece and symbol of 
Byron , 

An English reviewer of the day, writing for Blackwood' s Magazine, 
says: "Mazeppa is a very fine and spirited sketch, of a very noble 
story, and is in every way worthy of its author. The story is a well 
known one; namely, that of the young Pole, who, being bound 
naked on the back of a wild horse, on account of an intrigue with 
the lady of a certain great noble of his country, was carried by his 
steed into the heart of the Ukraine, and being there picked up by some 
Cossacks, in a state apparently of utter hopelessness and exhaus- 
tion, recovered and lived to be long after the prince and leader of the 
nation among whom he had arrived in this extraordinary manner. 
Lord Byron has represented the strange and wild incidents of this 
adventure, as being related in a half serious, half sporting way, by 
Mazeppa himself, to no less a person than Charles the Twelfth of 
Sweden, in some of whose last campaigns the Cossack Hetrnan 
took a distinguished part. He tells it during the desolate bivouac 
of Charles and the few friends who fled with him toward Turkey, 
after the bloody overthrow of Pultowa. There is not a little of 
beauty and gracefulness in this way of setting the picture; — the age 
of Mazeppa — the calm, practiced indifference with which he now 
submits to the worst of fortune's deeds — the heroic, unthinking cold- 
ness of the royal madman to whom he speaks — the dreary and 
perilous accompaniments of the scene around the speaker and the 
audience — all contribute to throw a very striking charm both of 
preparation and of contrast over the wild story of the Hetman. 
Nothing can be more beautiful, in like manner, than the account of 
love — the guilty love — the fruits of which had been so miraculous." 

Ivan Mazeppa (1644-1709), the hero of the poem, was the descend- 
ant of a poor but noble Polish family. It was while a page at the 
court of John Casimir, King of Poland, that his intrigue with the 
nobleman's wife occurred, with the subsequent punishment. After 
rising to the leadership among the Cossacks (1687), ^^ narrated, he 
gained the favor of Peter the Great, who gave him the title of Prince 
of Ukraine. Later he entered into unsuccessful conspiracies with 



134 NOTES 

the princes of Poland, and afterward Charles XII, to the end of 
gaining independence from Russia. He is said to have conrimitted 
suicide by pcison (1709) following Charles's overthrow at Pultowa. 

1. Pultowa or Poltava. The capital of the province of Pultowa, 
in southwestern Russia. Near it the Russians (about 70,000), under 
Peter the Great, defeated the Swedes (about 25,000) under Charles 
XII, June 27, 1709. The battle marks the fall of Charles's power 
and the beginning of Russia as a factor in the affairs of Europe. 

2. the royal Swede. Charles XII, known in history as the ''Mad- 
man of the North." His career, which was meteoric and spectac- 
ular, marks him as the greatest general of his time and one of the 
ablest statesmen. In an attempt to carry out the plan of Gustavus 
Adolphus to weld the land about the Baltic Sea into a vast Swedish 
empire, he invaded and conquered Denmark (1700); ignominously 
defeated the Russian forces at Narva, November 30th of the same 
year; and overthrew the Saxons and Poles (i 701-1706). In 1708 
he invaded Russia. Foiled in his attempt to capture Moscow, he 
suddenly turned south into the Ukraine district and laid siege to 
Poltava. Peter marched to the city's relief, and in the battle before 
its walls, virtually annihilated the Swedish army. Escaping with a 
few followers, Charles found an asylum in Turkey, where he remained 
six years. In 17 14 he returned north, and four years later was killed 
in battle at Frederikshald, Norway. It has been said of him that 
he was an old Norse Sea King born ten centuries after his time. Ho 
reigned from 1697 to 17 18. 

7. the triumphant Czar. Peter Alexeievitch (167 2-1 7 25), sur- 
named the Great: one of Russia's ablest rulers. He enlarged the 
borders of Russia, introduced western European civilization among 
Ms people, founded St. Petersburg, and placed the national govern- 
ment on a more liberal but firmer basis. Through his statesman- 
ship Russia became a recognized power among the nations. He 
reigned from 1690 to 1725. 

8. Moscow. The former capital of Russia and her chief com- 
mercial and manufacturing center of to-day. The city has fallen 
into the hands of the enemies repeatedly, and several times been 
destroyed by fire, the last time in September, 181 2, at the time of 
its occupation by the French. Napoleon's army, numbered upward 
of half a million men, half of whom perished in the Russian snows, 
or at the hands of the Cossacks. 

II. The wounded Charles was taught tofiy. See note to line 2. 

23. Gieba. One of Charles's commanders. Note the devotion 
of the King's subjects in the hour of his misfortune. 

46. of a day. That is, June 27, 1799, the day of the battle of 
Poltava. 



NOTES 135 

56. The Ukraine's hetman. Here,of course, Mazeppa. Ukraine, 
a region of southern Russia, of vague boundaries (lying chiefly in 
the middle Dneiper valley), was long an object of contention between 
Russia and Poland. Hetman, the title of the chief or general of 
the Cossacks. The title Chief Hetman is now held by the heir 
apparent to the throne of Russia. 

71. Tartar-like. Tartars: hardy, nomadic tribes of Central and 
Western Asia, noted for their ferocity and endurance. The expres- 
sion, *' Caught a Tartar," has passed into proverb. 

77. would follow like a fawn. Cf. Arnold's Sohrah and Rus- 
turn, 11. 270-271: 

"... and Ruksh, his horse, 
Follow' d like a faithful hound at heel." 

103-104. Since Alexander's days, etc. Alexander the Great 
(b.c. 356-323), the celebrated Macedonian conqueror and states- 
man. His favorite steed, Bucephalus, whom only his master could 
mount, and which accompanied him on his conquests, was buried 
with great pomp on the banks of the Hydaspes, in Northwestern 
India. 

105. Scythia. A name of varying meaning; a region of Southern 
Russia and Roumania. The Scythians were a wild, barbaric people 
much feared by their neighbor nations. 

116. Borysthenes. An ancient name of the river Dneiper, in 
Southwestern Russia. 

129. John Casimir. One of the line of Polish kings of that name. 

135- Warsaw. The capital of Russian Poland. 

147. He was the Polish Solomon. Explain the allusion. 

154. Thyrsis. A name for shepherds in Greek pastoral poetry. 

155. Palatine. One invested with royal privileges and rights. 
157. Rich as salt or silver mine. One should have in mind in 

this connection that the wealth of Poland consists largely in salt 
mines. 

j6i. beneath the throne. That is, not actually on the throne. 

163. And o'er his pedigree would pore. Read Browning's My 
Last Duchess, in connection with this passage. 

202. Theresa. The palatine's wife. 

208, 209. She had the Asiatic eye, etc. Dark, languid. Cf. 
Childe Harold, Canto III, Stanza XCLII. 

" Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light 
Of a dark eye in woman." 

See also Canto III, Stanza LIX, Childe Harold. 

219. As though it were a joy to die. The line originally read: 

"Until it proves a joy to die." 



136 NOTES 

269, 270. . . . though not, etc. The MS. reads: 

"... but not 
For that which we had both forgot." 

285. I shorten all my joy or pain. That is, passes over his love 
affair briefly. 

290. I am or rather was a prince. See note on Mazeppa, in 
introduction to poem. 

313-317. I would have given, etc. That is, if he could lawfully 
and honorably have had this woman as wife. 

321. The devil — I'm loth to do him wrong. What familiar 
saying does this suggest to you? Explain the lines following con- 
cerning the so-called saint. 

329. Cap-a-pie. French: from head to foot. The poet repeats 
the thought in the remainder of the line. 

331. 'Twas neither his castle. Antecedent of it and his? 

336. 'Scutcheon. Escutcheon. In heraldry, the shield on which 
the coat of arms of a family is represented. 

354. 'Sdeath! An oath; contidiction ior God' c death. 

358. Bring forth the horse! Note the abrupt manner in which 
the incident of the Hetman's wild ride is introduced. Is there any- 
thing suggestive in this? 

360. A Tartar. See note to line 71. 

428. Northern light. Aurora-Borealis. 

437. Spahi. Irregular Turkish cavalry. 

506. At bay, etc. "Nothing," says the critic in Blackwood' Sy 
*'can be grander than the sweep and torrent of the horse's speed 
and the slow, unwearied, inflexible pursuit of the wolves." 

520. A woman piqued. One gets repeated glimpses of the poet's 
attitude toward the opposite sex in this poem. (See line 138.) 

539-561. The earth gave way, the skies rolled round, etc. This 
passage, describing the Hetman's fainting, is among the best known 
of the poem. 

578. And thickened, as it were, with glass. "For now we see 
through a glass darkly." i Corinthians, xiii: 12. 

599, 600. Cf. The Ancient Mariner, Part V, Stanza iv: 

"I moved, and could not feel my limbs: 

I was so light — almost 
I thought that I had died in sleep, 

And was a blessed ghost." 

607. And onward, onward, onward. But little play of imagina- 
tion is required to catch the galloping motion of the courser in this 
line. Cf. Browning's How We Brought the Good News. 



NOTES 137 

613. As rose the moon upon my right. What direction was the 
Hetman's course ? 

"The sun came up upon the left, 
Out of the sea came he," etc. 

Ancient Mariner, Part I, stanza vii. 

619. ignis-fatuus. A fiame-Hke meteor composed of gases from 
decaying animal matter, which floats about in the air and seems to 
recede as one approaches it. The term is appHed to anything decep- 
tive or fanciful. 

636. Starkly. Stiffly, strongly. 

649, 650. The MS. has: — 

"Rose crimson and forbade the stars 
To sparkle in their radiant cars." 

In ancient mythology the heavenly bodies were represented as being 
carried across the sky in elaborate conveyances called cars. 

656. What booted it. What good did it do ? 

657-667. . . . Man nor brute, etc. Literature has few such 
pictures of utter desolation and loneliness. Cf. The Ancient Mariner ^ 
Part IV, Stanza iii: 

"Alone, alone all, all alone. 
Alone on a wide, wide sea!" 

662. Insects shrill, small horn. That is, the drone or hum of 
insects in flight. 

665. Werst. A Russian measure of distance; ^about two-thirds 
of an English mile. 

724-735. To that which our foreboding years. Death. Cf. 
Hamlet's soliloquy. Act III, Scene i. 

752. Paradise. Eden. Explain the allusion to the tree in this 
line. 

759. Guerdon. Reward, recompense. 

763. I know no more. Point out other examples of a change in 
tense to the historic present. Is anything gained by its use ? 

785. fixed. That is, engaged the whole attention. 

789. I woke. — ^Where was I? The looked-for and yet, in a sense, 
unprepared-for transitions throughout the poem, add greatly to its 
charm. 

806. From adding to the vulture's feast. Why adding to the 
vulture's feast ? 

843. Since I became the Cossacks' guest. See introductory note 
to poem. 

854. Let none despond, let none despair! Just why is this a 
very appropriate bit of philosophizing at this juncture ? 



138 NOTES 

857-859. Upon his Turkish bank, etc. Once safe across the 
Borysthenes, Charles and his followers would be on Turkish soil, 
and so free from their pursuers. 

ON THIS DAY I COMPLETE MY THIRTY-SIXTH 
YEAR. 

[Page 106.] 

*'On the morning of the 22nd of January, his birthday the last 
my poor friend was ever fated to see — he came from his bedroom 
into the apartment where Colonel Stanhope and some others were 
assembled, and said, with a smile, *You w^ere complaining the other 
day that I never write any poetry now. This is my birthday, and 
I have just finished something which, I think, is better than what I 
usually write.' He then produced to them those beautiful stanzas, 
. . . affectionately associated with the closing scene of his life. . . . 
Taking into consideration, indeed, everything connected with these 
verses, — the last tender aspirations of a loving spirit which they 
breathe, the self-devotion to a noble cause which they so nobly express, 
and that consciousness of a near grave glimmering sadly through the 
whole, — there is, perhaps, no production within the range of mere 
human composition, round which the circumstances and feelings 
under which it was written cast so touching an interest." — Moore's 
Life of Byron, 



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